diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 184a8e10c10..c35bc1ee08b 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -161,6 +161,7 @@ Release 0.90.2 - Unreleased
    HBASE-3687  Bulk assign on startup should handle a ServerNotRunningException
    HBASE-3617  NoRouteToHostException during balancing will cause Master abort
                (Ted Yu via Stack)
+   HBASE-3668  CatalogTracker.waitForMeta can wait forever and totally stall a RS
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
    HBASE-3542  MultiGet methods in Thrift
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/catalog/CatalogTracker.java b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/catalog/CatalogTracker.java
index b291936d0a0..08524c5ad6d 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/catalog/CatalogTracker.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/catalog/CatalogTracker.java
@@ -320,12 +320,12 @@ public class CatalogTracker {
   throws InterruptedException, IOException, NotAllMetaRegionsOnlineException {
     long stop = System.currentTimeMillis() + timeout;
     synchronized (metaAvailable) {
-      if (getMetaServerConnection(true) != null) {
-        return metaLocation;
-      }
       while(!stopped && !metaAvailable.get() &&
           (timeout == 0 || System.currentTimeMillis() < stop)) {
-        metaAvailable.wait(timeout);
+        if (getMetaServerConnection(true) != null) {
+          return metaLocation;
+        }
+        metaAvailable.wait(timeout == 0 ? 50 : timeout);
       }
       if (getMetaServerConnection(true) == null) {
         throw new NotAllMetaRegionsOnlineException(