diff --git a/docs/gunicorn_ext.py b/docs/gunicorn_ext.py
index 932ac022..155b0102 100755
--- a/docs/gunicorn_ext.py
+++ b/docs/gunicorn_ext.py
@@ -36,8 +36,9 @@ PULL_REQUEST_URI = 'https://github.com/benoitc/gunicorn/pull/%s'
 def format_settings(app):
     settings_file = os.path.join(app.srcdir, "settings.rst")
     ret = []
-    for i, s in enumerate(guncfg.KNOWN_SETTINGS):
-        if i == 0 or s.section != guncfg.KNOWN_SETTINGS[i - 1].section:
+    known_settings = sorted(guncfg.KNOWN_SETTINGS, key=lambda s: s.section)
+    for i, s in enumerate(known_settings):
+        if i == 0 or s.section != known_settings[i - 1].section:
             ret.append("%s\n%s\n\n" % (s.section, "-" * len(s.section)))
         ret.append(fmt_setting(s))
 
diff --git a/docs/source/news.rst b/docs/source/news.rst
index 05a4b413..3267047e 100644
--- a/docs/source/news.rst
+++ b/docs/source/news.rst
@@ -2,14 +2,16 @@
 Changelog
 =========
 
-19.9.0 / not released
-=====================
+19.x / not released
+===================
 
+- fix: prevent raising :exc:`AttributeError` when ``--reload`` is not passed
+  in case of a :exc:`SyntaxError` raised from the WSGI application.
+  (:issue:`1805`, :pr:`1806`)
 - The internal module ``gunicorn.workers.async`` was renamed to ``gunicorn.workers.base_async``
   since ``async`` is now a reserved word in Python 3.7.
   (:pr:`1527`)
 
-
 19.8.1 / 2018/04/30
 ===================
 
diff --git a/gunicorn/workers/base.py b/gunicorn/workers/base.py
index ce40796f..881efa0f 100644
--- a/gunicorn/workers/base.py
+++ b/gunicorn/workers/base.py
@@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ class Worker(object):
         try:
             self.wsgi = self.app.wsgi()
         except SyntaxError as e:
-            if self.cfg.reload == 'off':
+            if not self.cfg.reload:
                 raise
 
             self.log.exception(e)