diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 37fa2d54..7cd9676c 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: qtl
-Version: 1.49-1
-Date: 2021-06-30
+Version: 1.49-2
+Date: 2021-08-05
 Title: Tools for Analyzing QTL Experiments
 Author: Karl W Broman <broman@wisc.edu> and Hao Wu, with
   ideas from Gary Churchill and Saunak Sen and contributions from
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 787ceaa9..63f9e8c0 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -16,13 +16,17 @@ copyright (c) 2001-2021, Karl W Broman
     at https://www.r-project.org/Licenses/GPL-3
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
-## Verison 1.49, 2021-06-30
+## Verison 1.49, 2021-08-05
 
 ## New features
 
 - `cim()` now includes an `addcovar` argument for including additional
   covariates in the model.
 
+### Minor changes
+
+- Revised qtlversion() to handle a case like "1.50".
+
 
 ## Version 1.48, 2021-03-24
 
diff --git a/R/util.R b/R/util.R
index 72becd97..79abe160 100644
--- a/R/util.R
+++ b/R/util.R
@@ -3161,8 +3161,12 @@ qtlversion <-
 {
     version <- unlist(packageVersion("qtl"))
 
-    # make it like #.#-#
-    paste(c(version,".","-")[c(1,4,2,5,3)], collapse="")
+    if(length(version) == 3) {
+        # make it like #.#-#
+        return( paste(c(version, ".", "-")[c(1,4,2,5,3)], collapse="") )
+    }
+
+    paste(version, collapse=".")
 }