diff --git a/app/src/processing/app/Base.java b/app/src/processing/app/Base.java
index d33490323..0a5056554 100644
--- a/app/src/processing/app/Base.java
+++ b/app/src/processing/app/Base.java
@@ -139,8 +139,20 @@ public class Base {
     if (!portableFolder.exists())
       portableFolder = null;
 
+    File preferencesFile = null;
+
+    // Do a first pass over the commandline arguments, the rest of them
+    // will be processed by the Base constructor. Note that this loop
+    // does not look at the last element of args, to prevent crashing
+    // when no parameter was specified to an option. Later, Base() will
+    // then show an error for these.
+    for (int i = 0; i < args.length - 1; i++) {
+      if (args[i].equals("--preferences-file"))
+        preferencesFile = new File(args[i + 1]);
+    }
+
     // run static initialization that grabs all the prefs
-    Preferences.init(args);
+    Preferences.init(preferencesFile);
 
     try {
       File versionFile = getContentFile("lib/version.txt");
@@ -402,7 +414,7 @@ public class Base {
         i++;
         if (i >= args.length)
           showError(null, _("Argument required for --preferences-file"), 3);
-        // Argument should be already processed by Preferences.init(...) 
+        // Argument should be already processed by Base.main(...)
         continue;
       }
       if (args[i].startsWith("--"))
diff --git a/app/src/processing/app/Preferences.java b/app/src/processing/app/Preferences.java
index ca3900845..3e0d564eb 100644
--- a/app/src/processing/app/Preferences.java
+++ b/app/src/processing/app/Preferences.java
@@ -223,7 +223,11 @@ public class Preferences {
   static boolean doSave = true;
 
 
-  static protected void init(String args[]) {
+  static protected void init(File file) {
+    if (file != null)
+      preferencesFile = file;
+    else
+      preferencesFile = Base.getSettingsFile(Preferences.PREFS_FILE);
 
     // start by loading the defaults, in case something
     // important was deleted from the user prefs
@@ -255,17 +259,6 @@ public class Preferences {
     // clone the hash table
     defaults = new Hashtable<String, String>(table);
 
-    // next load user preferences file
-    preferencesFile = Base.getSettingsFile(PREFS_FILE);
-
-    // load a preferences file if specified on the command line
-    if (args != null) {
-      for (int i = 0; i < args.length - 1; i++) {
-        if (args[i].equals("--preferences-file"))
-          preferencesFile = new File(args[i + 1]);
-      }
-    }
-
     if (preferencesFile.exists()) {
       // load the previous preferences file
       try {