diff --git a/src/wp-includes/class-http.php b/src/wp-includes/class-http.php
index 6f2e28cc22..2b27658f89 100644
--- a/src/wp-includes/class-http.php
+++ b/src/wp-includes/class-http.php
@@ -1520,10 +1520,16 @@ class WP_Http_Curl {
 
 		// If an error occurred, or, no response.
 		if ( $curl_error || ( 0 == strlen( $theBody ) && empty( $theHeaders['headers'] ) ) ) {
-			if ( CURLE_WRITE_ERROR /* 23 */ == $curl_error && $r['stream'] ) {
+			if ( CURLE_WRITE_ERROR /* 23 */ == $curl_error ) {
 				if ( ! $this->max_body_length || $this->max_body_length != $bytes_written_total ) {
-					fclose( $this->stream_handle );
-					return new WP_Error( 'http_request_failed', __( 'Failed to write request to temporary file.' ) );
+					if ( $r['stream'] ) {
+						curl_close( $handle );
+						fclose( $this->stream_handle );
+						return new WP_Error( 'http_request_failed', __( 'Failed to write request to temporary file.' ) );
+					} else {
+						curl_close( $handle );
+						return new WP_Error( 'http_request_failed', curl_error( $handle ) );
+					}
 				}
 			} else {
 				if ( $curl_error = curl_error( $handle ) ) {
diff --git a/tests/phpunit/tests/http/base.php b/tests/phpunit/tests/http/base.php
index 63a5aa14bc..e4af6b8744 100644
--- a/tests/phpunit/tests/http/base.php
+++ b/tests/phpunit/tests/http/base.php
@@ -215,6 +215,22 @@ abstract class WP_HTTP_UnitTestCase extends WP_UnitTestCase {
 
 	}
 
+	/**
+	 * Tests Limiting the response size when returning strings
+	 *
+	 * @ticket 31172
+	 */
+	function test_request_limited_size() {
+		// we'll test against a file in the unit test data
+		$url = 'http://develop.svn.wordpress.org/trunk/tests/phpunit/data/images/2004-07-22-DSC_0007.jpg';
+		$size = 10000;
+
+		$res = wp_remote_request( $url, array( 'timeout' => 30, 'limit_response_size' => $size ) );
+
+		$this->assertFalse( is_wp_error( $res ) );
+		$this->assertEquals( $size, strlen( $res['body'] ) );
+	}
+
 	/**
 	 * Test POST redirection methods
 	 *