diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegion.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegion.java
index 8182afdc3f0..68b6c243370 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegion.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegion.java
@@ -2181,7 +2181,14 @@ public class HRegion implements HeapSize { // , Writable{
         // If we haven't got any rows in our batch, we should block to
         // get the next one.
         boolean shouldBlock = numReadyToWrite == 0;
-        Integer acquiredLockId = getLock(providedLockId, mutation.getRow(), shouldBlock);
+        Integer acquiredLockId = null;
+        try {
+          acquiredLockId = getLock(providedLockId, mutation.getRow(),
+              shouldBlock);
+        } catch (IOException ioe) {
+          LOG.warn("Failed getting lock in batch put, row="
+                  + Bytes.toStringBinary(mutation.getRow()), ioe);
+        }
         if (acquiredLockId == null) {
           // We failed to grab another lock
           assert !shouldBlock : "Should never fail to get lock when blocking";
@@ -3223,7 +3230,8 @@ public class HRegion implements HeapSize { // , Writable{
           try {
             if (!existingLatch.await(this.rowLockWaitDuration,
                             TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)) {
-                return null;
+              throw new IOException("Timed out on getting lock for row="
+                  + Bytes.toStringBinary(row));
             }
           } catch (InterruptedException ie) {
             // Empty