diff --git a/phpgwapi/inc/class.preferences.inc.php b/phpgwapi/inc/class.preferences.inc.php
index f090548e90..8e1c9809d6 100644
--- a/phpgwapi/inc/class.preferences.inc.php
+++ b/phpgwapi/inc/class.preferences.inc.php
@@ -358,7 +358,7 @@ class preferences
 		if($data === false)
 		{
 			// manually retrieve the string lengths of the serialized array if unserialize failed
-			$data = unserialize(preg_replace_callback('!s:(\d+):"(.*?)";!se', function($matches)
+			$data = unserialize(preg_replace_callback('!s:(\d+):"(.*?)";!s', function($matches)
 			{
 				return 's:'.mb_strlen($matches[2],'8bit').':"'.$matches[2].'";';
 			}, $str));