diff --git a/lib/ace/edit_session.js b/lib/ace/edit_session.js
index ac8d434d..7e4cc06e 100644
--- a/lib/ace/edit_session.js
+++ b/lib/ace/edit_session.js
@@ -761,6 +761,9 @@ var EditSession = function(text, mode) {
 
     this.$modes = {};
     this._loadMode = function(mode, callback) {
+        if (!this.$modes["null"])
+            this.$modes["null"] = this.$modes["ace/mode/text"] = new TextMode();
+
         if (this.$modes[mode])
             return callback(this.$modes[mode]);
 
@@ -804,11 +807,7 @@ var EditSession = function(text, mode) {
     };
 
     this.$setModePlaceholder = function() {
-        var textModeId = "ace/mode/text"
-        if (!this.$modes[textModeId])
-            this.$modes[textModeId] = new TextMode();
-
-        this.$mode = this.$modes[textModeId];
+        this.$mode = this.$modes["null"];
         var tokenizer = this.$mode.getTokenizer();
 
         if (!this.bgTokenizer) {
@@ -820,8 +819,8 @@ var EditSession = function(text, mode) {
         } else {
             this.bgTokenizer.setTokenizer(tokenizer);
         }
-		this.bgTokenizer.setDocument(this.getDocument());
-		
+        this.bgTokenizer.setDocument(this.getDocument());
+
         this.tokenRe = this.$mode.tokenRe;
         this.nonTokenRe = this.$mode.nonTokenRe;
     };
@@ -836,7 +835,7 @@ var EditSession = function(text, mode) {
     this.$mode = null;
     this.$modeId = null;
     this.setMode = function(mode) {
-        mode = mode || "ace/mode/text";
+        mode = mode || "null";
         // load on demand
         if (typeof mode === "string") {
             if (this.$modeId == mode)