diff --git a/share/tools/create_manpage_completions.py b/share/tools/create_manpage_completions.py
index e1b7ccaa4..4b9ad88f9 100755
--- a/share/tools/create_manpage_completions.py
+++ b/share/tools/create_manpage_completions.py
@@ -20,10 +20,14 @@ THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
 import string, sys, re, os.path, bz2, gzip, traceback, getopt, errno, codecs
 from deroff import Deroffer
 
+lzma_available = True
 try:
-    import backports.lzma as lzma
+    try:
+        import backports.lzma as lzma
+    except ImportError:
+        import lzma
 except ImportError:
-    import lzma
+    lzma_available = False
 
 # Whether we're Python 3
 IS_PY3 = sys.version_info[0] >= 3
@@ -727,6 +731,8 @@ def parse_manpage_at_path(manpage_path, output_directory):
         manpage = fd.read()
         if IS_PY3: manpage = manpage.decode('latin-1')
     elif manpage_path.endswith('.xz') or manpage_path.endswith('.lzma'):
+        if not lzma_available:
+            return
         fd = lzma.LZMAFile(str(manpage_path), 'r')
         manpage = fd.read()
         if IS_PY3: manpage = manpage.decode('latin-1')
@@ -829,6 +835,8 @@ def parse_and_output_man_pages(paths, output_directory, show_progress):
     last_progress_string_length = 0
     if show_progress and not WRITE_TO_STDOUT:
         print("Parsing man pages and writing completions to {0}".format(output_directory))
+    if not lzma_available and not WRITE_TO_STDOUT:
+        print('"lzma" module not available, cannot parse man pages compressed with xz or lzma')
     for manpage_path in paths:
         index += 1