diff --git a/api/api.lua b/api/api.lua
index 7d4200c9..d58ddcbc 100644
--- a/api/api.lua
+++ b/api/api.lua
@@ -92,33 +92,11 @@ gfind = string.gmatch or string.gfind
 mod = math.mod or mod
 
 -- [ strsplit ]
--- Splits a string using a delimiter. Self-contained on purpose: it does NOT
--- delegate to the global strsplit / string.split, because third-party addons
--- clobber those (e.g. BigWigs' SpellRequests redefines string:split to return
--- a table, which would make this return a single table instead of r,g,b,a and
--- break color/version parsing depending on load order). Delimiter chars are
--- treated as a set (any one char splits), and empty fields are preserved
--- ("a,,b" -> "a", "", "b"), matching real strsplit semantics.
--- 'delimiter'  [string]        characters that will be interpreted as delimiter
---                              characters (bytes) in the string.
--- 'subject'    [string]        String to split.
--- return:      [list]          a list of strings.
-local sfind, ssub, sgsub = string.find, string.sub, string.gsub
-function pfUI.api.strsplit(delimiter, subject)
-  if not subject then return nil end
-  -- a character class of the delimiter bytes, each escaped so % ] ^ - stay
-  -- literal
-  local set = "[" .. sgsub(delimiter or ":", "(%W)", "%%%1") .. "]"
-  local fields, start = {}, 1
-  local pos = sfind(subject, set)
-  while pos do
-    table.insert(fields, ssub(subject, start, pos - 1))
-    start = pos + 1
-    pos = sfind(subject, set, start)
-  end
-  table.insert(fields, ssub(subject, start))
-  return unpack(fields)
-end
+-- ClassicAPI's strsplit, taken from the ClassicAPI table, which no addon can
+-- overwrite. Third-party addons replace the global strsplit / string.split
+-- (e.g. BigWigs' SpellRequests makes string:split return a table), and bare
+-- strsplit calls inside the pfUI environment resolve to this copy.
+pfUI.api.strsplit = ClassicAPI.strsplit
 
 -- [ isempty ]
 -- Returns true if a table is empty or not existing, otherwise false.
diff --git a/modules/equipmentmanager.lua b/modules/equipmentmanager.lua
index 0c5c7eff..2924196a 100644
--- a/modules/equipmentmanager.lua
+++ b/modules/equipmentmanager.lua
@@ -1303,7 +1303,7 @@ pfUI:RegisterModule("equipmentmanager", function()
   local function InForm(value)
     local formID = GetShapeshiftFormID() or 0
     if value == "any" then return formID ~= 0 end
-    for _, id in ipairs({ strsplit(",", value) }) do
+    for _, id in ipairs({ strsplit(",", value or "") }) do
       if tonumber(id) == formID then return true end
     end
     return false
diff --git a/pfUI.lua b/pfUI.lua
index f7122474..a625b149 100644
--- a/pfUI.lua
+++ b/pfUI.lua
@@ -368,7 +368,7 @@ pfUI:SetScript("OnEvent", function()
       pfUI.version.major, pfUI.version.minor, pfUI.version.fix = 0, 0, 0
       pfUI.version.string = "dev"
     else
-      local major, minor, fix = pfUI.api.strsplit(".", string.gsub(raw, "^[vV]", ""))
+      local major, minor, fix = pfUI.api.strsplit(".", (string.gsub(raw, "^[vV]", "")))
       pfUI.version.major = tonumber(major) or 0
       pfUI.version.minor = tonumber(minor) or 0
       pfUI.version.fix   = tonumber(fix)   or 0