diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/odt.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/odt.py
index 7ce907311c..0c8c1105a7 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/odt.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/odt.py
@@ -159,7 +159,8 @@ def get_metadata(stream, extract_cover=True):
     zin = zipfile.ZipFile(stream, 'r')
     odfs = odfmetaparser()
     parser = xml.sax.make_parser()
-    parser.setFeature(xml.sax.handler.feature_namespaces, 1)
+    parser.setFeature(xml.sax.handler.feature_namespaces, True)
+    parser.setFeature(xml.sax.handler.feature_external_ges, False)
     parser.setContentHandler(odfs)
     content = zin.read('meta.xml')
     parser.parse(StringIO(content))