diff --git a/libavcodec/tiffenc.c b/libavcodec/tiffenc.c
index 3d37d2e084..e575c4c9a0 100644
--- a/libavcodec/tiffenc.c
+++ b/libavcodec/tiffenc.c
@@ -265,6 +265,9 @@ static int encode_frame(AVCodecContext *avctx, AVPacket *pkt,
     s->subsampling[0] = 1;
     s->subsampling[1] = 1;
 
+    if (!desc)
+        return AVERROR(EINVAL);
+
     avctx->bits_per_coded_sample =
     s->bpp          = av_get_bits_per_pixel(desc);
     s->bpp_tab_size = desc->nb_components;