diff --git a/src/gtk/utilsgtk.cpp b/src/gtk/utilsgtk.cpp
index 93b8f02790..8e36cc40b7 100644
--- a/src/gtk/utilsgtk.cpp
+++ b/src/gtk/utilsgtk.cpp
@@ -116,6 +116,12 @@ wxWindow* wxFindWindowAtPoint(const wxPoint& pt)
 WXDLLIMPEXP_CORE wxCharBuffer
 wxConvertToGTK(const wxString& s, wxFontEncoding enc)
 {
+    // Passing an empty string to cMB2WC() returns an invalid buffer, i.e. a
+    // buffer whose data is NULL and this can result in passing NULL to a GTK+
+    // function and a crash, so handle this case specially to avoid this.
+    if ( s.empty() )
+        return wxCharBuffer("");
+
     wxWCharBuffer wbuf;
     if ( enc == wxFONTENCODING_SYSTEM || enc == wxFONTENCODING_DEFAULT )
     {