diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/ScanQueryMatcher.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/ScanQueryMatcher.java
index c832255aeb6..2ee9ee131ce 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/ScanQueryMatcher.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/ScanQueryMatcher.java
@@ -622,6 +622,10 @@ public class ScanQueryMatcher {
     }
   }
 
+  boolean isUserScan() {
+    return this.isUserScan;
+  }
+
   //Used only for testing purposes
   static MatchCode checkColumn(ColumnTracker columnTracker, byte[] bytes, int offset,
       int length, long ttl, byte type, boolean ignoreCount) throws IOException {
diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/StoreScanner.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/StoreScanner.java
index ddf0721d652..bfa83359616 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/StoreScanner.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/StoreScanner.java
@@ -347,7 +347,7 @@ public class StoreScanner extends NonReversedNonLazyKeyValueScanner
       if (!isParallelSeek) {
         long totalScannersSoughtBytes = 0;
         for (KeyValueScanner scanner : scanners) {
-          if (totalScannersSoughtBytes >= maxRowSize) {
+          if (matcher.isUserScan() && totalScannersSoughtBytes >= maxRowSize) {
             throw new RowTooBigException("Max row size allowed: " + maxRowSize
               + ", but row is bigger than that");
           }
@@ -557,7 +557,7 @@ public class StoreScanner extends NonReversedNonLazyKeyValueScanner
             scannerContext.incrementSizeProgress(CellUtil.estimatedHeapSizeOfWithoutTags(cell));
             scannerContext.incrementBatchProgress(1);
 
-            if (totalBytesRead > maxRowSize) {
+            if (matcher.isUserScan() && totalBytesRead > maxRowSize) {
               throw new RowTooBigException("Max row size allowed: " + maxRowSize
                   + ", but the row is bigger than that.");
             }