diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index 098194ced3d..3c7e5c34448 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -536,6 +536,9 @@ Release 2.8.0 - UNRELEASED
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
 
+    HADOOP-12271. Hadoop Jar Error Should Be More Explanatory
+    (Josh Elser via harsh)
+
     HADOOP-6842. "hadoop fs -text" does not give a useful text representation
     of MapWritable objects (Akira Ajisaka via bobby)
 
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/RunJar.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/RunJar.java
index 4b26b7611d6..ccb114baaef 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/RunJar.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/RunJar.java
@@ -148,7 +148,8 @@ public class RunJar {
     String fileName = args[firstArg++];
     File file = new File(fileName);
     if (!file.exists() || !file.isFile()) {
-      System.err.println("Not a valid JAR: " + file.getCanonicalPath());
+      System.err.println("JAR does not exist or is not a normal file: " +
+          file.getCanonicalPath());
       System.exit(-1);
     }
     String mainClassName = null;