diff --git a/libavformat/aaxdec.c b/libavformat/aaxdec.c
index 3db6e9bc6d..7d10e805ca 100644
--- a/libavformat/aaxdec.c
+++ b/libavformat/aaxdec.c
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ static int aax_read_header(AVFormatContext *s)
         int64_t col_offset;
         int flag, type;
 
-        if (strcmp(a->xcolumns[c].name, "data"))
+        if (!a->xcolumns[c].name || strcmp(a->xcolumns[c].name, "data"))
             continue;
 
         type = a->xcolumns[c].type;