diff --git a/main/pbx.c b/main/pbx.c
index 546cc8fca4..1be93f2d71 100644
--- a/main/pbx.c
+++ b/main/pbx.c
@@ -4225,8 +4225,10 @@ static int handle_statechange(void *datap)
 
 	AST_RWLIST_TRAVERSE(&hints, hint, list) {
 		struct ast_state_cb *cblist;
-		char *parse = ast_strdupa(ast_get_extension_app(hint->exten));
-		char *cur;
+		/* can't use ast_strdupa() here because we may run out of stack
+		 * space while looping over a large number of large strings */
+		char *dup = ast_strdup(ast_get_extension_app(hint->exten));
+		char *cur, *parse = dup;
 		int state;
 
 		while ( (cur = strsep(&parse, "&")) ) {
@@ -4234,6 +4236,9 @@ static int handle_statechange(void *datap)
 				break;
 			}
 		}
+
+		ast_free(dup);
+
 		if (!cur) {
 			continue;
 		}