diff -U 3 -dHrN a/libcomps/src/comps_parse.c b/libcomps/src/comps_parse.c
--- a/libcomps/src/comps_parse.c	2022-09-09 13:55:00.000000000 +0200
+++ b/libcomps/src/comps_parse.c	2023-10-04 14:00:50.722561035 +0200
@@ -176,21 +176,21 @@
 }
 
 void __comps_after_parse(COMPS_Parsed *parsed) {
-    if (parsed->doctype_name) {
+    if (parsed->doctype_name && parsed->comps_doc) {
         COMPS_OBJECT_DESTROY(parsed->comps_doc->doctype_name);
         parsed->comps_doc->doctype_name = (COMPS_Str*)
                                   COMPS_OBJECT_INCREF(parsed->doctype_name);
     } else {
         //parsed->comps_doc->doctype_name = comps_str(comps_default_doctype_name);
     }
-    if (parsed->doctype_sysid) {
+    if (parsed->doctype_sysid && parsed->comps_doc) {
         COMPS_OBJECT_DESTROY(parsed->comps_doc->doctype_sysid);
         parsed->comps_doc->doctype_sysid = (COMPS_Str*)
                                   COMPS_OBJECT_INCREF(parsed->doctype_sysid);
     } else {
         //parsed->comps_doc->doctype_sysid = comps_str(comps_default_doctype_sysid);
     }
-    if (parsed->doctype_pubid) {
+    if (parsed->doctype_pubid && parsed->comps_doc) {
         COMPS_OBJECT_DESTROY(parsed->comps_doc->doctype_pubid);
         parsed->comps_doc->doctype_pubid = (COMPS_Str*)
                                   COMPS_OBJECT_INCREF(parsed->doctype_pubid);
diff -U 3 -dHrN a/libcomps/src/python/tests/__test.py b/libcomps/src/python/tests/__test.py
--- a/libcomps/src/python/tests/__test.py	2023-10-04 14:00:25.970189009 +0200
+++ b/libcomps/src/python/tests/__test.py	2023-10-04 14:00:50.723080381 +0200
@@ -1270,5 +1270,14 @@
     #suite = unittest.TestLoader().loadTestsFromTestCase(EnvListTest)
     #MyRunner(verbosity=2).run(suite)
 
+        VALID_XML_HEADER_NO_COMPS = """<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+        <!DOCTYPE variants PUBLIC "-//Red Hat, Inc.//DTD Variants info//EN" "variants.dtd">
+        <variants>
+        </variants>"""
+        comps6 = libcomps.Comps()
+        ret = comps6.fromxml_str(str(VALID_XML_HEADER_NO_COMPS))
+        # return code 1 is non fatal error
+        self.assertTrue(ret == 1, comps6.get_last_errors())
+