diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
index 200ace0bdc..4f0b1d5c52 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
@@ -882,7 +882,7 @@ class Manifest(object):
                                 "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?><o:p></o:p>",
                                 '')
                         data = data.replace("<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'??>", '')
-                        data = etree.fromstring(data)
+                        data = etree.fromstring(data, parser=RECOVER_PARSER)
             elif namespace(data.tag) != XHTML_NS:
                 # OEB_DOC_NS, but possibly others
                 ns = namespace(data.tag)