diff --git a/retroshare-gui/src/gui/settings/AppearancePage.cpp b/retroshare-gui/src/gui/settings/AppearancePage.cpp
index dcfb0350e..8ad086ae9 100755
--- a/retroshare-gui/src/gui/settings/AppearancePage.cpp
+++ b/retroshare-gui/src/gui/settings/AppearancePage.cpp
@@ -74,8 +74,12 @@ AppearancePage::AppearancePage(QWidget * parent, Qt::WindowFlags flags)
 	foreach (QString code, LanguageSupport::languageCodes()) {
 		ui.cmboLanguage->addItem(FilesDefs::getIconFromQtResourcePath(":/images/flags/" + code + ".png"), LanguageSupport::languageName(code), code);
 	}
-	foreach (QString style, QStyleFactory::keys()) {
-        if(style.toLower() != "gtk2" || (getenv("QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME")!=nullptr && !strcmp(getenv("QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME"),"gtk2")))	// make sure that if style is gtk2, the system has the correct environment variable set.
+
+    // Note: apparently, on some linux systems (e.g. Debian 11), the gtk2 style makes Qt libs crash when the environment variable is not set.
+    //       So we first check that it's here before start.
+
+    foreach (QString style, QStyleFactory::keys()) {
+        if(style.toLower() != "gtk2" || (getenv("QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME")!=nullptr && !strcmp(getenv("QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME"),"gtk2")))
             ui.cmboStyle->addItem(style, style.toLower());
 	}