diff --git a/src/servers/syslog_daemon/SyslogDaemon.cpp b/src/servers/syslog_daemon/SyslogDaemon.cpp
index b6e13622a5..e569d28e5a 100644
--- a/src/servers/syslog_daemon/SyslogDaemon.cpp
+++ b/src/servers/syslog_daemon/SyslogDaemon.cpp
@@ -138,6 +138,11 @@ SyslogDaemon::Daemon()
 		// add terminating null byte
 		message.message[bytesRead - sizeof(syslog_message)] = '\0';
 
+		if (!message.message[0]) {
+			// ignore empty messages
+			continue;
+		}
+
 		fHandlerLock.Lock();
 
 		for (int32 i = fHandlers.CountItems(); i-- > 0;) {
diff --git a/src/servers/syslog_daemon/syslog_output.cpp b/src/servers/syslog_daemon/syslog_output.cpp
index 1c3d1faa32..e76c18cc94 100644
--- a/src/servers/syslog_daemon/syslog_output.cpp
+++ b/src/servers/syslog_daemon/syslog_output.cpp
@@ -164,6 +164,8 @@ syslog_output(syslog_message &message)
 		} else {
 			length = strlcpy(buffer + headerLength, message.message + pos,
 				sizeof(buffer) - headerLength);
+			if (length == 0)
+				break;
 		}
 
 		length += headerLength;
diff --git a/src/system/kernel/debug/debug.c b/src/system/kernel/debug/debug.c
index 512b9c2008..12f17d9349 100644
--- a/src/system/kernel/debug/debug.c
+++ b/src/system/kernel/debug/debug.c
@@ -431,6 +431,12 @@ syslog_sender(void *data)
 				restore_interrupts(state);
 			}
 
+			if (length == 0) {
+				// the buffer we came here for might have been sent already
+				bufferPending = false;
+				continue;
+			}
+
 			error = write_port_etc(port, SYSLOG_MESSAGE, sSyslogMessage,
 				sizeof(struct syslog_message) + length, B_RELATIVE_TIMEOUT, 0);