diff --git a/include/qobject/json-parser.h b/include/qobject/json-parser.h
index 3479e63758..e078b36b2d 100644
--- a/include/qobject/json-parser.h
+++ b/include/qobject/json-parser.h
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
 typedef struct JSONLexer {
     int start_state, state;
     GString *token;
+    int cur_x, cur_y;
     int x, y;
 } JSONLexer;
 
diff --git a/qobject/json-lexer.c b/qobject/json-lexer.c
index 51341d96e4..7753ba6c09 100644
--- a/qobject/json-lexer.c
+++ b/qobject/json-lexer.c
@@ -277,7 +277,8 @@ void json_lexer_init(JSONLexer *lexer, bool enable_interpolation)
     lexer->start_state = lexer->state = enable_interpolation
         ? IN_START_INTERP : IN_START;
     lexer->token = g_string_sized_new(3);
-    lexer->x = lexer->y = 0;
+    lexer->cur_x = lexer->cur_y = 1;
+    lexer->x = lexer->y = 1;
 }
 
 static void json_lexer_feed_char(JSONLexer *lexer, char ch, bool flush)
@@ -285,10 +286,10 @@ static void json_lexer_feed_char(JSONLexer *lexer, char ch, bool flush)
     int new_state;
     bool char_consumed = false;
 
-    lexer->x++;
+    lexer->cur_x++;
     if (ch == '\n') {
-        lexer->x = 0;
-        lexer->y++;
+        lexer->cur_x = 1;
+        lexer->cur_y++;
     }
 
     while (flush ? lexer->state != lexer->start_state : !char_consumed) {
@@ -316,6 +317,8 @@ static void json_lexer_feed_char(JSONLexer *lexer, char ch, bool flush)
         case IN_START:
             g_string_truncate(lexer->token, 0);
             new_state = lexer->start_state;
+            lexer->x = lexer->cur_x;
+            lexer->y = lexer->cur_y;
             break;
         case JSON_ERROR:
             json_message_process_token(lexer, lexer->token, JSON_ERROR,
diff --git a/qobject/json-parser.c b/qobject/json-parser.c
index 0dcc94fefd..5935730c0c 100644
--- a/qobject/json-parser.c
+++ b/qobject/json-parser.c
@@ -133,15 +133,6 @@ typedef struct JSONParserStackEntry {
 
 #define BUG_ON(cond) assert(!(cond))
 
-/**
- * TODO
- *
- * 0) make errors meaningful again
- * 1) add geometry information to tokens
- * 3) should we return a parsed size?
- * 4) deal with premature EOI
- */
-
 static inline JSONParserStackEntry *current_entry(JSONParserContext *ctxt)
 {
     return g_queue_peek_tail(ctxt->stack);
@@ -180,7 +171,8 @@ static void G_GNUC_PRINTF(3, 4) parse_error(JSONParserContext *ctxt,
     va_start(ap, msg);
     vsnprintf(message, sizeof(message), msg, ap);
     va_end(ap);
-    error_setg(&ctxt->err, "JSON parse error, %s", message);
+    error_setg(&ctxt->err, "%d:%d: JSON parse error, %s",
+               token->y, token->x, message);
 }
 
 static int cvt4hex(const char *s)