diff --git a/openlp/plugins/songs/lib/importers/songbeamer.py b/openlp/plugins/songs/lib/importers/songbeamer.py
index 3b5bf4aac..7f19086ac 100644
--- a/openlp/plugins/songs/lib/importers/songbeamer.py
+++ b/openlp/plugins/songs/lib/importers/songbeamer.py
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ class SongBeamerImport(SongImport):
                 # The encoding should only be ANSI (cp1252), UTF-8, Unicode, Big-Endian-Unicode.
                 # So if it doesn't start with 'u' we default to cp1252. See:
                 # https://forum.songbeamer.com/viewtopic.php?p=419&sid=ca4814924e37c11e4438b7272a98b6f2
-                if not self.input_file_encoding.lower().startswith('u'):
+                if self.input_file_encoding and not self.input_file_encoding.lower().startswith('u'):
                     self.input_file_encoding = 'cp1252'
                 with file_path.open(encoding=self.input_file_encoding) as song_file:
                     song_data = song_file.readlines()