diff --git a/src/plugins/plugin_misc_text_syntaxes.py b/src/plugins/plugin_misc_text_syntaxes.py
index b4f4aba9..24b01806 100755
--- a/src/plugins/plugin_misc_text_syntaxes.py
+++ b/src/plugins/plugin_misc_text_syntaxes.py
@@ -122,6 +122,7 @@ class TextSyntaxes(object):
 
     def _updateParamOptions(self):
         data_synt = TextSyntaxes.params_data['syntaxes']
+        default_synt = TextSyntaxes.params_data.get('default', _SYNTAX_XHTML)
         syntaxes = []
 
         for syntax in data_synt.keys():
@@ -133,7 +134,7 @@ class TextSyntaxes(object):
         options = []
 
         for syntax in syntaxes:
-            selected = 'selected="true"' if syntax == _SYNTAX_XHTML else ''
+            selected = 'selected="true"' if syntax == default_synt else ''
             options.append(u'<option value="%s" %s/>' % (syntax, selected))
 
         TextSyntaxes.params_data["options"] = u'\n'.join(options)
@@ -256,7 +257,7 @@ class TextSyntaxes(object):
             raise exceptions.ConflictError(u"This syntax name already exists: {}".format(name))
         syntaxes[name] = {"to": to_xhtml_cb, "from": from_xhtml_cb, "flags": flags}
         if TextSyntaxes.OPT_DEFAULT in flags:
-            syntaxes = TextSyntaxes.params_data['default'] = name
+            TextSyntaxes.params_data['default'] = name
 
         self._updateParamOptions()