diff --git a/Classes/PHPExcel/Reader/Excel2007.php b/Classes/PHPExcel/Reader/Excel2007.php
index 1932df4b6..e95e9c826 100644
--- a/Classes/PHPExcel/Reader/Excel2007.php
+++ b/Classes/PHPExcel/Reader/Excel2007.php
@@ -1293,6 +1293,11 @@ public function load($pFilename)
                                     // Load VML comments file
                                     $relPath = PHPExcel_Shared_File::realpath(dirname("$dir/$fileWorksheet") . "/" . $relPath);
                                     $vmlCommentsFile = simplexml_load_string($this->securityScan($this->getFromZipArchive($zip, $relPath)), 'SimpleXMLElement', PHPExcel_Settings::getLibXmlLoaderOptions());
+                                    
+                                    if ($vmlCommentsFile == false) {
+                                        continue;
+                                    }
+                                    
                                     $vmlCommentsFile->registerXPathNamespace('v', 'urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml');
 
                                     $shapes = $vmlCommentsFile->xpath('//v:shape');