diff --git a/reference/xmlrpc/functions/xmlrpc-encode-request.xml b/reference/xmlrpc/functions/xmlrpc-encode-request.xml
index 9f9dd3c4bd..06d3976866 100644
--- a/reference/xmlrpc/functions/xmlrpc-encode-request.xml
+++ b/reference/xmlrpc/functions/xmlrpc-encode-request.xml
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ $context = stream_context_create(array('http' => array(
 )));
 $file = file_get_contents("http://www.example.com/xmlrpc", false, $context);
 $response = xmlrpc_decode($file);
-if (xmlrpc_is_fault($response)) {
+if ($response && xmlrpc_is_fault($response)) {
     trigger_error("xmlrpc: $response[faultString] ($response[faultCode])");
 } else {
     print_r($response);