diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index a3af3378e..c2f53fef6 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -11,6 +11,11 @@ NEXT
 - fix integration of pytest with unittest.mock.patch decorator when
   it uses the "new" argument.  Thanks Nicolas Delaby for test and PR.
 
+- fix issue with detecting conftest files if the arguments contain
+  "::" node id specifications (copy pasted from "-v" output)
+
+- fix issue544 by only removing "@NUM" at the end of "::" separated parts 
+  and if the part has an ".py" extension
 
 2.6
 -----------------------------------
diff --git a/_pytest/config.py b/_pytest/config.py
index 51f178862..1eeb6b3b7 100644
--- a/_pytest/config.py
+++ b/_pytest/config.py
@@ -485,6 +485,11 @@ class Conftest(object):
         testpaths = namespace.file_or_dir
         foundanchor = False
         for path in testpaths:
+            path = str(path)
+            # remove node-id syntax
+            i = path.find("::")
+            if i != -1:
+                path = path[:i]
             anchor = current.join(path, abs=1)
             if exists(anchor): # we found some file object
                 self._try_load_conftest(anchor)
@@ -857,10 +862,11 @@ def getcfg(args, inibasenames):
     return {}
 
 
+rex_pyat = re.compile(r'(.*\.py)@\d+$')
+
 def node_with_line_number(string):
-    split = string.split('[')
-    split[0] = re.sub(r'@\d+', '', split[0])
-    return '['.join(split)
+    return "::".join(rex_pyat.sub(lambda m: m.group(1), part)
+                        for part in string.split("::"))
 
 
 def setns(obj, dic):
diff --git a/testing/test_conftest.py b/testing/test_conftest.py
index 96df19550..8bf936dbe 100644
--- a/testing/test_conftest.py
+++ b/testing/test_conftest.py
@@ -237,3 +237,21 @@ def test_fixture_dependency(testdir, monkeypatch):
     """))
     result = testdir.runpytest("sub")
     result.stdout.fnmatch_lines(["*1 passed*"])
+
+
+def test_conftest_found_with_double_dash(testdir):
+    sub = testdir.mkdir("sub")
+    sub.join("conftest.py").write(py.std.textwrap.dedent("""
+        def pytest_addoption(parser):
+            parser.addoption("--hello-world", action="store_true")
+    """))
+    p = sub.join("test_hello.py")
+    p.write(py.std.textwrap.dedent("""
+        import pytest
+        def test_hello(found):
+            assert found == 1
+    """))
+    result = testdir.runpytest(str(p) + "@2::test_hello", "-h")
+    result.stdout.fnmatch_lines("""
+        *--hello-world*
+    """)
diff --git a/testing/test_parseopt.py b/testing/test_parseopt.py
index 2e19a90f4..36defef2c 100644
--- a/testing/test_parseopt.py
+++ b/testing/test_parseopt.py
@@ -146,8 +146,19 @@ class TestParser:
         assert args.S == False
 
     def test_parse_removes_line_number_from_positional_arguments(self, parser):
-        args = parser.parse(['path@2::func', 'path2@5::func2[param with @]'])
-        assert getattr(args, parseopt.FILE_OR_DIR) == ['path::func', 'path2::func2[param with @]']
+        args = parser.parse(['path.txt@2::item',
+                             'path2.py::func2[param with .py@123]',
+                             'path.py@123',
+                             'hello/path.py@123',
+        ])
+        # we only remove "@NUM" syntax for .py files which are currently
+        # the only ones which can produce it.
+        assert getattr(args, parseopt.FILE_OR_DIR) == [
+            'path.txt@2::item',
+            'path2.py::func2[param with .py@123]',
+            'path.py',
+            'hello/path.py',
+        ]
 
     def test_parse_defaultgetter(self):
         def defaultget(option):