diff --git a/lib/helper.php b/lib/helper.php
index b7166e9fb411d1df8e333ebdde30c0f1f0183d84..2da06c4cc454df9ab07bab2f6902aec272a2adb4 100644
--- a/lib/helper.php
+++ b/lib/helper.php
@@ -373,20 +373,15 @@ class OC_Helper {
 		}
 		if (!$isWrapped and $mimeType=='application/octet-stream' && OC_Helper::canExecute("file")) {
 			// it looks like we have a 'file' command,
-			// lets see it it does have mime support
+			// lets see if it does have mime support
 			$path=escapeshellarg($path);
 			$fp = popen("file -i -b $path 2>/dev/null", "r");
 			$reply = fgets($fp);
 			pclose($fp);
 
-			//trim the character set from the end of the response
-			$mimeType=substr($reply,0, strrpos($reply,' '));
-			$mimeType=substr($mimeType,0, strrpos($mimeType,"\n"));
-
-			//trim ;
-			if (strpos($mimeType, ';') !== false) {
-				$mimeType = strstr($mimeType, ';', true);
-			}
+			// we have smth like 'text/x-c++; charset=us-ascii\n'
+			// and need to eliminate everything starting with semicolon including trailing LF
+			$mimeType = preg_replace('/;.*/ms', '', trim($reply));
 
 		}
 		return $mimeType;