diff --git a/checkin_notes b/checkin_notes
index bb796ba487..214507e8fe 100755
--- a/checkin_notes
+++ b/checkin_notes
@@ -7776,7 +7776,14 @@ Karl 2003-11-22
         client_types.C
 
 Karl 2003-11-24
-    - testbase fixes
+    - fixed bug in boinc_db.C which causes SQL lookups to seg fault if any of
+      the 'seti_*' grandfather fields are NULL (how does the current beta test
+      run at all?!)
+
+    db/
+        boinc_db.C
+
+    - testbase tweaks
 
     test/
         testbase.py
diff --git a/db/boinc_db.C b/db/boinc_db.C
index 51e70356e9..90cd3e6eee 100644
--- a/db/boinc_db.C
+++ b/db/boinc_db.C
@@ -32,6 +32,18 @@ static struct random_init {
     }
 } random_init;
 
+// if SQL columns are not 'not null', you must use these safe_atoi, safe_atof
+// instead of atoi, atof, since the strings returned by MySQL may be NULL.
+inline int safe_atoi(const char* s)
+{
+    return s && atoi(s);
+}
+
+inline float safe_atof(const char* s)
+{
+    return s && atof(s);
+}
+
 void PROJECT::clear() {memset(this, 0, sizeof(*this));}
 void PLATFORM::clear() {memset(this, 0, sizeof(*this));}
 void CORE_VERSION::clear() {memset(this, 0, sizeof(*this));}
@@ -236,11 +248,11 @@ void DB_USER::db_parse(MYSQL_ROW &r) {
     strcpy2(url, r[i++]);
     send_email = atoi(r[i++]);
     show_hosts = atoi(r[i++]);
-    posts = atoi(r[i++]);
-    seti_id = atoi(r[i++]);
-    seti_nresults = atoi(r[i++]);
-    seti_last_result_time = atoi(r[i++]);
-    seti_total_cpu = atof(r[i++]);
+    posts = safe_atoi(r[i++]);
+    seti_id = safe_atoi(r[i++]);
+    seti_nresults = safe_atoi(r[i++]);
+    seti_last_result_time = safe_atoi(r[i++]);
+    seti_total_cpu = safe_atof(r[i++]);
 }
 
 void DB_TEAM::db_print(char* buf){
@@ -293,7 +305,7 @@ void DB_TEAM::db_parse(MYSQL_ROW &r) {
     strcpy2(country, r[i++]);
     total_credit = atof(r[i++]);
     expavg_credit = atof(r[i++]);
-    seti_id = atoi(r[i++]);
+    seti_id = safe_atoi(r[i++]);
 }
 
 void DB_HOST::db_print(char* buf){
diff --git a/test/cgiserver.py b/test/cgiserver.py
index e0d491c3cf..cbe07665b0 100755
--- a/test/cgiserver.py
+++ b/test/cgiserver.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 
 import BaseHTTPServer, CGIHTTPServer
 import sys, os, urllib, select
+import random, time                     # XXX
 
 php_path = None
 possible_php_paths = [ '/usr/lib/cgi-bin/php4',
@@ -159,6 +160,23 @@ class PHPHTTPRequestHandler(CGIHTTPServer.CGIHTTPRequestHandler):
                 return
             # Child
             try:
+                if 0:
+                    time.sleep(.1)
+                    fn = '/tmp/a%d'%random.randint(1000,10000)
+                    f = open(fn, 'w')
+                    s = ''
+                    while select.select([self.rfile], [], [], 0)[0]:
+                        try:
+                            c = self.rfile.read(1)
+                            if not c:
+                                break
+                            s += c
+                        except:
+                            break
+                    print '### input:', repr(s)
+                    print >>f, s
+                    f.close()
+                    self.rfile = open(fn, 'r')
                 os.dup2(self.rfile.fileno(), 0)
                 os.dup2(self.wfile.fileno(), 1)
                 os.chdir(self.translate_path(dir)) # KC