diff --git a/RELEASE-NOTES b/RELEASE-NOTES
index cc50d41646a5a05e6e466d54dedf7a49f9e4ca8f..bb4bcac0d91a525e2295ef1f86370271730bd8dc 100644
--- a/RELEASE-NOTES
+++ b/RELEASE-NOTES
@@ -57,6 +57,7 @@ This release includes the following bugfixes:
  o gnutls: fixed compilation against versions < 2.12.0
  o build: Fixed overridden compiler PDB settings in VC7 to VC12
  o ntlm_wb: Fixed buffer size not being large enough for NTLMv2 sessions [11]
+ o netrc: don't abort if home dir cannot be found
 
 This release includes the following known bugs:
 
diff --git a/lib/netrc.c b/lib/netrc.c
index a1b00b2d6e9ac9f261662a883cbb43d46b504ea9..a7a710159592a8fd1b1627db6c0d737d11b1c0bb 100644
--- a/lib/netrc.c
+++ b/lib/netrc.c
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ int Curl_parsenetrc(const char *host,
     }
 
     if(!home)
-      return -1;
+      return retcode; /* no home directory found (or possibly out of memory) */
 
     netrcfile = curl_maprintf("%s%s%s", home, DIR_CHAR, NETRC);
     if(home_alloc)