diff --git a/spawn.c b/spawn.c
index 01e255cc5..7e4fee363 100644
--- a/spawn.c
+++ b/spawn.c
@@ -260,7 +260,14 @@ spawn_launchee_timeout(gpointer context)
 static void
 spawn_callback(gpointer user_data)
 {
+    SnLauncherContext *context = (SnLauncherContext *) user_data;
     setsid();
+
+    if (context)
+        sn_launcher_context_setup_child_process(context);
+    else
+        /* Unset in case awesome was already started with this variable set */
+        unsetenv("DESKTOP_STARTUP_ID");
 }
 
 /** Parse a command line.
@@ -352,12 +359,11 @@ luaA_spawn(lua_State *L)
         /* app will have AWESOME_SPAWN_TIMEOUT seconds to complete,
          * or the timeout function will terminate the launch sequence anyway */
         g_timeout_add_seconds(AWESOME_SPAWN_TIMEOUT, spawn_launchee_timeout, context);
-        sn_launcher_context_setup_child_process(context);
     }
 
     GError *error = NULL;
     retval = g_spawn_async(NULL, argv, NULL, G_SPAWN_SEARCH_PATH,
-                           spawn_callback, NULL, &pid, &error);
+                           spawn_callback, context, &pid, &error);
     g_strfreev(argv);
     if(!retval)
     {