diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/master/CatalogJanitor.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/master/CatalogJanitor.java
index ef2a0054924..d02e5ae05d3 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/master/CatalogJanitor.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/master/CatalogJanitor.java
@@ -214,6 +214,7 @@ public class CatalogJanitor extends ScheduledChore {
   int scan() throws IOException {
     try {
       if (!alreadyRunning.compareAndSet(false, true)) {
+        LOG.debug("CatalogJanitor already running");
         return 0;
       }
       Triple<Integer, Map<HRegionInfo, Result>, Map<HRegionInfo, Result>> scanTriple =
diff --git a/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/TestRegionMergeTransactionOnCluster.java b/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/TestRegionMergeTransactionOnCluster.java
index 44b24cefcb7..e3f6cc27e2c 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/TestRegionMergeTransactionOnCluster.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/TestRegionMergeTransactionOnCluster.java
@@ -268,8 +268,8 @@ public class TestRegionMergeTransactionOnCluster {
         cleaner.chore();
         Thread.sleep(1000);
       }
-      int newcount1 = 0;
       while (System.currentTimeMillis() < timeout) {
+        int newcount1 = 0;
         for(HColumnDescriptor colFamily : columnFamilies) {
           newcount1 += hrfs.getStoreFiles(colFamily.getName()).size();
         }
@@ -280,10 +280,15 @@ public class TestRegionMergeTransactionOnCluster {
       }
       // run CatalogJanitor to clean merge references in hbase:meta and archive the
       // files of merging regions
-      int cleaned = admin.runCatalogScan();
+      int cleaned = 0;
+      while (cleaned == 0) {
+        cleaned = admin.runCatalogScan();
+        LOG.debug("catalog janitor returned " + cleaned);
+        Thread.sleep(50);
+      }
+      assertFalse(regionAdir.toString(), fs.exists(regionAdir));
+      assertFalse(regionBdir.toString(), fs.exists(regionBdir));
       assertTrue(cleaned > 0);
-      assertFalse(fs.exists(regionAdir));
-      assertFalse(fs.exists(regionBdir));
 
       mergedRegionResult = MetaTableAccessor.getRegionResult(
         master.getConnection(), mergedRegionInfo.getRegionName());