diff --git a/html/inc/user.inc b/html/inc/user.inc
index 5c22c3dc61..6586a82f96 100644
--- a/html/inc/user.inc
+++ b/html/inc/user.inc
@@ -79,8 +79,8 @@ function get_other_projects($user) {
         //
         $remote = @json_decode(json_encode((array)$xml_object))->project;
         if (!$remote) $remote = [];
-        if (count($remote) == 1) {
-            $remote = array($remote);
+        if (!is_array($remote)) {
+            $remote = [$remote];
         }
 
         // Cache the results
diff --git a/html/inc/util.inc b/html/inc/util.inc
index ba93dc44e3..6b169beb31 100644
--- a/html/inc/util.inc
+++ b/html/inc/util.inc
@@ -1024,6 +1024,7 @@ function sanitize_local_url($x) {
 // strip HTML tags
 //
 function sanitize_tags($x) {
+    if (!$x) return $x;
     return strip_tags($x);
 }