diff --git a/e107_handlers/xml_class.php b/e107_handlers/xml_class.php
index 4002a1bd4..fc64e5add 100644
--- a/e107_handlers/xml_class.php
+++ b/e107_handlers/xml_class.php
@@ -553,7 +553,7 @@ class xmlClass
 		}
 
 		//Recursive calls start here
-		if($tags)
+		if(self::is_assoc($tags))
 		{
 			$tags = array_keys($tags);
 			$count_tags = count($tags);
@@ -749,6 +749,25 @@ class xmlClass
 		return $vars;
 	}
 
+	/**
+	 * Determine if the provided variable is an associative array
+	 *
+	 * This method is necessary because since PHP 7.2, get_object_vars() on
+	 * a SimpleXMLElement object began returning sequential arrays, and
+	 * xmlClass::xml2array() interpreted the sequence as XML tags.
+	 *
+	 * See https://github.com/e107inc/e107/issues/3018 for details.
+	 *
+	 * @param array $array The variable to check
+	 * @return boolean true if the provided variable is an associative array,
+	 *                 false if it's a sequential array or anything else
+	 */
+	private static function is_assoc($array)
+	{
+		if (!is_array($array) || array() === $array) return false;
+		return array_keys($array) !== range(0, count($array) - 1);
+	}
+
 	/**
 	 * Load XML file and parse it (optional)
 	 *