diff --git a/gio/ChangeLog b/gio/ChangeLog
index 6df6bc295..1417f65dd 100644
--- a/gio/ChangeLog
+++ b/gio/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+2009-03-04  Alexander Larsson  <alexl@redhat.com>
+
+	Bug 573843 – g_get_current_dir returns non-absolute path
+
+	* glocalfile.c (canonicalize_filename):
+	Handle the case where g_get_current_dir() returns a non-absolute path.
+
 2009-03-04  Alexander Larsson  <alexl@redhat.com>
 
 	Bug 573970 – crash in gunixvolumemonitor:update_mounts when unmounting
diff --git a/gio/glocalfile.c b/gio/glocalfile.c
index 217ee988c..b1d7353df 100644
--- a/gio/glocalfile.c
+++ b/gio/glocalfile.c
@@ -244,6 +244,15 @@ canonicalize_filename (const char *filename)
 
   start = (char *)g_path_skip_root (canon);
 
+  if (start == NULL)
+    {
+      /* This shouldn't really happen, as g_get_current_dir() should
+	 return an absolute pathname, but bug 573843 shows this is
+	 not always happening */
+      g_free (canon);
+      return g_build_filename (G_DIR_SEPARATOR_S, filename, NULL);
+    }
+  
   /* POSIX allows double slashes at the start to
    * mean something special (as does windows too).
    * So, "//" != "/", but more than two slashes