diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 42848727..870ff49b 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 - fix build with MSVC 
 - fix a problem with shinkv tail processing [angelmixu]
 - fix a read one byte beyond buffer bug in jpegload
+- make GIF parsing less strict
 
 24/5/19 started 8.8.1
 - improve realpath() use on older libc
diff --git a/libvips/foreign/gifload.c b/libvips/foreign/gifload.c
index 122e5f40..a76ba040 100644
--- a/libvips/foreign/gifload.c
+++ b/libvips/foreign/gifload.c
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@
  * 	- init pages to 0 before load
  * 14/2/19
  * 	- rework as a sequential loader ... simpler, much lower mem use
+ * 23/8/18
+ * 	- allow GIF read errors during header scan
  */
 
 /*
@@ -601,11 +603,12 @@ vips_foreign_load_gif_header( VipsForeignLoad *load )
 
 	gif->n_pages = 0;
 
-	do { 
-		if( DGifGetRecordType( gif->file, &record ) == GIF_ERROR ) {
-			vips_foreign_load_gif_error( gif ); 
-			return( -1 ); 
-		}
+	do {
+		/* Don't flag errors during header scan. Some corrupt GIFs
+		 * will fail.
+		 */
+		if( DGifGetRecordType( gif->file, &record ) == GIF_ERROR ) 
+			continue;
 
 		switch( record ) {
 		case IMAGE_DESC_RECORD_TYPE: