diff --git a/gitweb/gitweb.perl b/gitweb/gitweb.perl
index 0b1e357ce9..3d80deba01 100755
--- a/gitweb/gitweb.perl
+++ b/gitweb/gitweb.perl
@@ -554,11 +554,14 @@ sub filter_snapshot_fmts {
 }
 
 our $GITWEB_CONFIG = $ENV{'GITWEB_CONFIG'} || "++GITWEB_CONFIG++";
+our $GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM = $ENV{'GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM'} || "++GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM++";
+# die if there are errors parsing config file
 if (-e $GITWEB_CONFIG) {
 	do $GITWEB_CONFIG;
-} else {
-	our $GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM = $ENV{'GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM'} || "++GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM++";
-	do $GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM if -e $GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM;
+	die $@ if $@;
+} elsif (-e $GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM) {
+	do $GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM;
+	die $@ if $@;
 }
 
 # Get loadavg of system, to compare against $maxload.