diff --git a/lib/watcher/__init__.py b/lib/watcher/__init__.py
index 82682d72f71de99fbf94f309f3e0aefbca9ee2ac..45e285f48e2e06e59aace450bf7f91b5cd9443e5 100644
--- a/lib/watcher/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/watcher/__init__.py
@@ -445,7 +445,7 @@ def _ReadInstanceStatus(filename):
       logging.exception("Unable to read '%s', ignoring", filename)
     return (None, None)
   else:
-    return (statcb.st.st_mtime, [line.split(1)
+    return (statcb.st.st_mtime, [line.split(None, 1)
                                  for line in content.splitlines()])