diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 157a1981..304e86a9 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,4 +1,10 @@
+Fri Oct 28 10:24:39 CEST 2005 Daniel Veillard <daniel@veillard.com>
+
+	* error.c: fixing a portability problem on some old Unices with
+	  patch from Albert Chin
+
 2005-10-27  Aleksey Sanin <aleksey@aleksey.com>
+
 	* c14n.c  result/c14n/exc-without-comments/test-2
 	  test/c14n/exc-without-comments/test-2.xml
 	  test/c14n/exc-without-comments/test-2.xpath: fixing
diff --git a/error.c b/error.c
index 0770273d..722ffbb5 100644
--- a/error.c
+++ b/error.c
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ void XMLCDECL xmlGenericErrorDefaultFunc	(void *ctx ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED,
 				 ...);
 
 #define XML_GET_VAR_STR(msg, str) {				\
-    int       size;						\
+    int       size, prev_size = -1;				\
     int       chars;						\
     char      *larger;						\
     va_list   ap;						\
@@ -35,8 +35,13 @@ void XMLCDECL xmlGenericErrorDefaultFunc	(void *ctx ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED,
 	va_start(ap, msg);					\
   	chars = vsnprintf(str, size, msg, ap);			\
 	va_end(ap);						\
-	if ((chars > -1) && (chars < size))			\
-	    break;						\
+	if ((chars > -1) && (chars < size)) {			\
+	    if (prev_size == chars) {				\
+		break;						\
+	    } else {						\
+		prev_size = chars;				\
+	    }							\
+	}							\
 	if (chars > -1)						\
 	    size += chars + 1;					\
 	else							\