diff -urN tracker.orig/src/trackerd/tracker-dbus-search.c tracker.test/src/trackerd/tracker-dbus-search.c
--- tracker.orig/src/trackerd/tracker-dbus-search.c	2006-08-01 21:13:46.000000000 +0200
+++ tracker.test/src/trackerd/tracker-dbus-search.c	2006-08-07 10:35:50.848824440 +0200
@@ -482,6 +482,25 @@
 
 		str = tracker_rdf_query_to_sql (db_con, query, service, fields, row_count, search_term, sort_results, offset, limit , NULL);
 
+		if (! str) {
+			g_free (search_term);
+			reply = dbus_message_new_method_return (rec->message);
+			dbus_message_iter_init_append (reply, &iter);
+
+			dbus_message_iter_open_container (&iter, 
+							  DBUS_TYPE_ARRAY,
+							  DBUS_DICT_ENTRY_BEGIN_CHAR_AS_STRING
+							  DBUS_TYPE_STRING_AS_STRING
+							  DBUS_TYPE_VARIANT_AS_STRING
+							  DBUS_DICT_ENTRY_END_CHAR_AS_STRING,
+							  &iter_dict);
+			dbus_message_iter_close_container (&iter, &iter_dict);
+
+			dbus_connection_send (rec->connection, reply, NULL);
+			dbus_message_unref (reply);
+			g_return_if_fail (str); /* show us a warning */
+		}
+
 		g_free (search_term);
 		tracker_log ("translated rdf query is %s\n", str);
 		res = tracker_exec_sql (db_con->db, str);