diff --git a/fdroidserver/checkupdates.py b/fdroidserver/checkupdates.py
index 60314160..d8d6af43 100644
--- a/fdroidserver/checkupdates.py
+++ b/fdroidserver/checkupdates.py
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ def check_http(app):
             if not parsed.netloc or not parsed.scheme or parsed.scheme != 'https':
                 raise FDroidException(_('UpdateCheckData has invalid URL: {url}').format(url=urlcode))
 
-        vercode = "99999999"
+        vercode = None
         if len(urlcode) > 0:
             logging.debug("...requesting {0}".format(urlcode))
             req = urllib.request.Request(urlcode, None)
diff --git a/fdroidserver/common.py b/fdroidserver/common.py
index c86386c6..8541c5df 100644
--- a/fdroidserver/common.py
+++ b/fdroidserver/common.py
@@ -71,6 +71,8 @@ CERT_PATH_REGEX = re.compile(r'^META-INF/.*\.(DSA|EC|RSA)$')
 APK_NAME_REGEX = re.compile(r'^([a-zA-Z][\w.]*)_(-?[0-9]+)_?([0-9a-f]{7})?\.apk')
 STANDARD_FILE_NAME_REGEX = re.compile(r'^(\w[\w.]*)_(-?[0-9]+)\.\w+')
 
+MAX_VERSION_CODE = 0x7fffffff  # Java's Integer.MAX_VALUE (2147483647)
+
 XMLElementTree.register_namespace('android', 'http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android')
 
 config = None