diff --git a/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c b/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c
index a3309beebcf..ba2fbdcf02a 100644
--- a/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c
+++ b/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c
@@ -5341,7 +5341,7 @@ readRecoveryCommandFile(void)
 		else if (strcmp(item->name, "recovery_target_xid") == 0)
 		{
 			errno = 0;
-			recoveryTargetXid = (TransactionId) strtoul(item->value, NULL, 0);
+			recoveryTargetXid = (TransactionId) pg_strtouint64(item->value, NULL, 0);
 			if (errno == EINVAL || errno == ERANGE)
 				ereport(FATAL,
 						(errcode(ERRCODE_INVALID_PARAMETER_VALUE),
diff --git a/src/test/recovery/t/003_recovery_targets.pl b/src/test/recovery/t/003_recovery_targets.pl
index 824fa4da529..aff5402226d 100644
--- a/src/test/recovery/t/003_recovery_targets.pl
+++ b/src/test/recovery/t/003_recovery_targets.pl
@@ -47,6 +47,10 @@ sub test_recovery_standby
 my $node_master = get_new_node('master');
 $node_master->init(has_archiving => 1, allows_streaming => 1);
 
+# Bump the transaction ID epoch.  This is useful to stress the portability
+# of recovery_target_xid parsing.
+system_or_bail('pg_resetwal', '-e', '1', $node_master->data_dir);
+
 # Start it
 $node_master->start;