diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index ebd87fe5e64..cd23e0f091c 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -134,6 +134,9 @@ Release 2.0.1-alpha - UNRELEASED
     HADOOP-8563. don't package hadoop-pipes examples/bin
     (Colin Patrick McCabe via tgraves)
 
+    HADOOP-8566. AvroReflectSerializer.accept(Class) throws a NPE if the class has no 
+    package (primitive types and arrays). (tucu)
+
   BREAKDOWN OF HDFS-3042 SUBTASKS
 
     HADOOP-8220. ZKFailoverController doesn't handle failure to become active
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/serializer/avro/AvroReflectSerialization.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/serializer/avro/AvroReflectSerialization.java
index 5636b597e33..cfbc60d1045 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/serializer/avro/AvroReflectSerialization.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/serializer/avro/AvroReflectSerialization.java
@@ -58,8 +58,8 @@ public class AvroReflectSerialization extends AvroSerialization<Object>{
     if (packages == null) {
       getPackages();
     }
-    return AvroReflectSerializable.class.isAssignableFrom(c) || 
-      packages.contains(c.getPackage().getName());
+    return AvroReflectSerializable.class.isAssignableFrom(c) ||
+      (c.getPackage() != null && packages.contains(c.getPackage().getName()));
   }
 
   private void getPackages() {
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/serializer/avro/TestAvroSerialization.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/serializer/avro/TestAvroSerialization.java
index 08f2c40e9ea..181419c137e 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/serializer/avro/TestAvroSerialization.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/serializer/avro/TestAvroSerialization.java
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ package org.apache.hadoop.io.serializer.avro;
 import junit.framework.TestCase;
 
 import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
+import org.apache.hadoop.io.serializer.SerializationFactory;
 import org.apache.hadoop.io.serializer.SerializationTestUtil;
 
 public class TestAvroSerialization extends TestCase {
@@ -43,6 +44,12 @@ public class TestAvroSerialization extends TestCase {
     assertEquals(before, after);
   }
 
+  public void testAcceptHandlingPrimitivesAndArrays() throws Exception {
+    SerializationFactory factory = new SerializationFactory(conf);
+    assertNull(factory.getSerializer(byte[].class));
+    assertNull(factory.getSerializer(byte.class));
+  }
+
   public void testReflectInnerClass() throws Exception {
     InnerRecord before = new InnerRecord();
     before.x = 10;