diff --git a/core/views/site.py b/core/views/site.py
index 133f1647..05e85d9a 100644
--- a/core/views/site.py
+++ b/core/views/site.py
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ from django.shortcuts import render, redirect
 from django.http import JsonResponse
 from django.core import serializers
 from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
+from django.utils import html
 from django.views.generic import ListView, TemplateView
 from django.conf import settings
 
@@ -71,10 +72,11 @@ def notification(request, notif_id):
 
 
 def search_user(query, as_json=False):
-    if query == "" or query.isspace():
+    try:
+        res = SearchQuerySet().models(User).autocomplete(auto=html.escape(query))[:20]
+        return [r.object for r in res]
+    except TypeError:
         return []
-    res = SearchQuerySet().models(User).autocomplete(auto=query)[:20]
-    return [r.object for r in res]
 
 
 def search_club(query, as_json=False):
diff --git a/forum/views.py b/forum/views.py
index a89a547d..5ffdfea8 100644
--- a/forum/views.py
+++ b/forum/views.py
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ from django.views.generic.edit import UpdateView, CreateView, DeleteView
 from django.views.generic.detail import SingleObjectMixin
 from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
 from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse_lazy
-from django.utils import timezone
+from django.utils import timezone, html
 from django.conf import settings
 from django import forms
 from django.core.exceptions import PermissionDenied
@@ -56,11 +56,15 @@ class ForumSearchView(ListView):
         query = self.request.GET.get("query", "")
         order_by = self.request.GET.get("order", "")
 
-        if query == "" or query.isspace():
+        try:
+            queryset = (
+                RelatedSearchQuerySet()
+                .models(ForumMessage)
+                .autocomplete(auto=html.escape(query))
+            )
+        except TypeError:
             return []
 
-        queryset = RelatedSearchQuerySet().models(ForumMessage).autocomplete(auto=query)
-
         if order_by == "date":
             queryset = queryset.order_by("-date")
 
@@ -85,7 +89,6 @@ class ForumSearchView(ListView):
             ):
                 resp.append(r.object)
                 count += 1
-
         return resp