diff --git a/src/backend/access/transam/xlogrecovery.c b/src/backend/access/transam/xlogrecovery.c
index a59a0e826b..d354701423 100644
--- a/src/backend/access/transam/xlogrecovery.c
+++ b/src/backend/access/transam/xlogrecovery.c
@@ -3023,19 +3023,6 @@ ReadRecord(XLogPrefetcher *xlogprefetcher, int emode,
 		record = XLogPrefetcherReadRecord(xlogprefetcher, &errormsg);
 		if (record == NULL)
 		{
-			/*
-			 * When not in standby mode we find that WAL ends in an incomplete
-			 * record, keep track of that record.  After recovery is done,
-			 * we'll write a record to indicate to downstream WAL readers that
-			 * that portion is to be ignored.
-			 */
-			if (!StandbyMode &&
-				!XLogRecPtrIsInvalid(xlogreader->abortedRecPtr))
-			{
-				abortedRecPtr = xlogreader->abortedRecPtr;
-				missingContrecPtr = xlogreader->missingContrecPtr;
-			}
-
 			if (readFile >= 0)
 			{
 				close(readFile);
@@ -3125,8 +3112,20 @@ ReadRecord(XLogPrefetcher *xlogprefetcher, int emode,
 			/* In standby mode, loop back to retry. Otherwise, give up. */
 			if (StandbyMode && !CheckForStandbyTrigger())
 				continue;
-			else
-				return NULL;
+
+			/*
+			 * We return NULL to the caller.  If the last record has failed
+			 * with a missing contrecord, inform that to the caller as well.
+			 * In other cases we retry from the beginning of the failed record
+			 * so no need to do this.
+			 */
+			if (!XLogRecPtrIsInvalid(xlogreader->abortedRecPtr))
+			{
+				abortedRecPtr = xlogreader->abortedRecPtr;
+				missingContrecPtr = xlogreader->missingContrecPtr;
+			}
+
+			return NULL;
 		}
 	}
 }