diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 64d78f5e5a..1dffb4254a 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+2008-11-11  Sven Neumann  <sven@gimp.org>
+
+	Bug 557830 – PDB browser chokes as you are entering regex
+	characters
+
+	* libgimp/gimpprocbrowserdialog.c: check if the query is a valid
+	regex before calling gimp_procedural_db_query().
+
 2008-11-11  Michael Natterer  <mitch@gimp.org>
 
 	* app/core/gimpitem.c: add read-only "offset-x" and "offset-y"
diff --git a/libgimp/gimpprocbrowserdialog.c b/libgimp/gimpprocbrowserdialog.c
index dc2ef08972..22b889cb7f 100644
--- a/libgimp/gimpprocbrowserdialog.c
+++ b/libgimp/gimpprocbrowserdialog.c
@@ -367,9 +367,25 @@ browser_search (GimpBrowser           *browser,
                 gint                   search_type,
                 GimpProcBrowserDialog *dialog)
 {
-  gchar **proc_list;
-  gint    num_procs;
-  gchar  *str;
+  gchar  **proc_list;
+  gint     num_procs;
+  gchar   *str;
+  GRegex  *regex;
+
+  /*  first check if the query is a valid regex  */
+  regex = g_regex_new (query_text, 0, 0, NULL);
+
+  if (! regex)
+    {
+      gtk_tree_view_set_model (GTK_TREE_VIEW (dialog->tree_view), NULL);
+      dialog->store = NULL;
+
+      gimp_browser_show_message (browser,
+                                 _("Search term invalid or incomplete"));
+      return;
+    }
+
+  g_regex_unref (regex);
 
   switch (search_type)
     {