diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 3731fe9ebcc..09122f98232 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -79,6 +79,9 @@ Release 2.6.1 - UNRELEASED
     HDFS-7009. Active NN and standby NN have different live nodes.
     (Ming Ma via cnauroth)
 
+    HDFS-7763. fix zkfc hung issue due to not catching exception in a corner
+    case. (Liang Xie via wang)
+
 Release 2.6.0 - 2014-11-18
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/DFSZKFailoverController.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/DFSZKFailoverController.java
index a42b1e31895..85f77f1b7d1 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/DFSZKFailoverController.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/DFSZKFailoverController.java
@@ -176,8 +176,13 @@ public static void main(String args[])
         new HdfsConfiguration(), args);
     DFSZKFailoverController zkfc = DFSZKFailoverController.create(
         parser.getConfiguration());
-    
-    System.exit(zkfc.run(parser.getRemainingArgs()));
+    int retCode = 0;
+    try {
+      retCode = zkfc.run(parser.getRemainingArgs());
+    } catch (Throwable t) {
+      LOG.fatal("Got a fatal error, exiting now", t);
+    }
+    System.exit(retCode);
   }
 
   @Override