diff --git a/lib/PBot/Core/Factoids/Interpreter.pm b/lib/PBot/Core/Factoids/Interpreter.pm
index 1de0bede..f51970e1 100644
--- a/lib/PBot/Core/Factoids/Interpreter.pm
+++ b/lib/PBot/Core/Factoids/Interpreter.pm
@@ -440,10 +440,10 @@ sub handle_action {
 
         my $result = $self->{pbot}->{modules}->execute_module($context);
 
-        if (length $result) {
+        if (defined $result && length $result) {
             return $ref_from . $result;
         } else {
-            return '';
+            return $result;
         }
     }
     elsif ($self->{pbot}->{factoids}->{data}->{storage}->get_data($channel, $keyword, 'type') eq 'text') {
diff --git a/lib/PBot/Core/Interpreter.pm b/lib/PBot/Core/Interpreter.pm
index f221136e..5d3307b3 100644
--- a/lib/PBot/Core/Interpreter.pm
+++ b/lib/PBot/Core/Interpreter.pm
@@ -554,7 +554,7 @@ sub handle_result {
     $result //= $context->{result};
 
     # ensure we have a command result to work with
-    $result //= '';
+    return if not defined $result;
 
     # preservation of consecutive whitespace is disabled by default
     $context->{preserve_whitespace} //= 0;
@@ -1000,9 +1000,8 @@ sub add_to_command_queue {
                 $context->{'cap-override'} = $command->{'cap-override'};
             }
 
-            my $result = $self->interpret($context);
-            $context->{result} = $result;
-            $self->handle_result($context, $result);
+            $context->{result} = $self->interpret($context);
+            $self->handle_result($context);
         },
         $delay, "command $channel $command->{command}", $repeating
     );
diff --git a/lib/PBot/Core/Modules.pm b/lib/PBot/Core/Modules.pm
index 03e3668b..989d533a 100644
--- a/lib/PBot/Core/Modules.pm
+++ b/lib/PBot/Core/Modules.pm
@@ -23,7 +23,6 @@ sub initialize {
 
 sub execute_module {
     my ($self, $context) = @_;
-    my $text;
 
     if ($self->{pbot}->{registry}->get_value('general', 'debugcontext')) {
         use Data::Dumper;
diff --git a/lib/PBot/Core/ProcessManager.pm b/lib/PBot/Core/ProcessManager.pm
index e7043f21..0ab7e081 100644
--- a/lib/PBot/Core/ProcessManager.pm
+++ b/lib/PBot/Core/ProcessManager.pm
@@ -143,8 +143,8 @@ sub execute_process {
         # add reader handler
         $self->{pbot}->{select_handler}->add_reader($reader, sub { $self->process_pipe_reader($context->{pid}, @_) });
 
-        # return empty string since reader will handle the output when child is finished
-        return '';
+        # return undef since reader will handle the output when child is finished
+        return undef;
     }
 }
 
diff --git a/lib/PBot/VERSION.pm b/lib/PBot/VERSION.pm
index 357d298c..cfacbf8b 100644
--- a/lib/PBot/VERSION.pm
+++ b/lib/PBot/VERSION.pm
@@ -25,8 +25,8 @@ use PBot::Imports;
 # These are set by the /misc/update_version script
 use constant {
     BUILD_NAME     => "PBot",
-    BUILD_REVISION => 4374,
-    BUILD_DATE     => "2021-08-28",
+    BUILD_REVISION => 4376,
+    BUILD_DATE     => "2021-09-04",
 };
 
 sub initialize {}