diff --git a/libavformat/apetag.c b/libavformat/apetag.c
index 258bdaa1b6..26359205f8 100644
--- a/libavformat/apetag.c
+++ b/libavformat/apetag.c
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ static int ape_tag_read_field(AVFormatContext *s)
 {
     AVIOContext *pb = s->pb;
     uint8_t key[1024], *value;
-    uint32_t size, flags;
+    int64_t size, flags;
     int i, c;
 
     size = avio_rl32(pb);  /* field size */