diff --git a/CONTRIBUTORS b/CONTRIBUTORS
index 6964599bb..bd35ada85 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTORS
+++ b/CONTRIBUTORS
@@ -269,6 +269,7 @@ Philip Hourihane
 Phillip Wells
 Pierre Delisle
 Pierre Dittgen
+riasol
 R Handerson
 Rami Ojares
 Randy Watler
diff --git a/WHATSNEW b/WHATSNEW
index 0b3885d8d..88f656d05 100644
--- a/WHATSNEW
+++ b/WHATSNEW
@@ -192,6 +192,9 @@ Fixed bugs:
    provided using non-fileset resource collections.
    Bugzilla Issue 50115.
 
+*  ftp chmod could throw a NPE.
+   Bugzilla report 50217.
+
 Other changes:
 --------------
 
diff --git a/contributors.xml b/contributors.xml
index 06be2cd3b..8f8879a07 100644
--- a/contributors.xml
+++ b/contributors.xml
@@ -1468,4 +1468,8 @@
     <first>Zdenek</first>
     <last>Wagner</last>
   </name>
+  <name>
+    <first/>
+    <last>riasol</last>
+  </name>
 </contributors>
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/net/FTP.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/net/FTP.java
index 67e5e6606..405bfa539 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/net/FTP.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/net/FTP.java
@@ -2102,7 +2102,7 @@ public class FTP extends Task implements FTPTaskConfig {
             myReply = ftp.getReplyStrings();
 
             for (int x = 0; x < myReply.length; x++) {
-                if (myReply[x].indexOf("200") == -1) {
+                if (myReply[x] != null && myReply[x].indexOf("200") == -1) {
                     log(myReply[x], Project.MSG_WARN);
                 }
             }