diff -rup gnome-utils-2.25.90/logview/logview-prefs.c gnome-utils-2.25.90_new/logview/logview-prefs.c
--- gnome-utils-2.25.90/logview/logview-prefs.c	2008-12-23 15:55:03.000000000 +0100
+++ gnome-utils-2.25.90_new/logview/logview-prefs.c	2009-02-27 02:57:46.255981153 +0100
@@ -261,18 +261,23 @@ logview_prefs_fill_defaults (LogviewPref
 {
   GSList *logs;
   int i;
+  FILE *deflog;
 
   g_assert (LOGVIEW_IS_PREFS (prefs));
 
-  /* insert in the registry both the default items and the files
+  /* insert in the registry both the default items (if existent) and the files
    * specified in syslog.conf.
    */
 
   logs = parse_syslog ();
 
   for (i = 0; default_logfiles[i]; i++) {
-    if (g_slist_find_custom (logs, default_logfiles[i], (GCompareFunc) g_ascii_strcasecmp) == NULL)
+    if (g_slist_find_custom (logs, default_logfiles[i], 
+        (GCompareFunc) g_ascii_strcasecmp) == NULL && 
+        (deflog = fopen (default_logfiles[i], "r")) != NULL) {
       logs = g_slist_insert (logs, g_strdup (default_logfiles[i]), 0);
+      fclose (deflog);
+    }
   }
 
   gconf_client_set_list (prefs->priv->client,