diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index a517b0aae9a..7b185ddbfe9 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -162,6 +162,9 @@ Bug Fixes
 * SOLR-1667: PatternTokenizer does not reset attributes such as positionIncrementGap
   (Robert Muir via shalin)
 
+* SOLR-1711: SolrJ - StreamingUpdateSolrServer had a race condition that
+  could halt the streaming of documents. (Attila Babo via yonik)
+
 Other Changes
 ----------------------
 
diff --git a/src/solrj/org/apache/solr/client/solrj/impl/StreamingUpdateSolrServer.java b/src/solrj/org/apache/solr/client/solrj/impl/StreamingUpdateSolrServer.java
index b328c861848..8254b93dacf 100644
--- a/src/solrj/org/apache/solr/client/solrj/impl/StreamingUpdateSolrServer.java
+++ b/src/solrj/org/apache/solr/client/solrj/impl/StreamingUpdateSolrServer.java
@@ -99,6 +99,7 @@ public class StreamingUpdateSolrServer extends CommonsHttpSolrServer
       log.info( "starting runner: {}" , this );
       PostMethod method = null;
       try {
+        do {
         RequestEntity request = new RequestEntity() {
           // we don't know the length
           public long getContentLength() { return -1; }
@@ -159,6 +160,7 @@ public class StreamingUpdateSolrServer extends CommonsHttpSolrServer
           msg.append( "request: "+method.getURI() );
           handleError( new Exception( msg.toString() ) );
         }
+        }  while( ! queue.isEmpty());
       }
       catch (Throwable e) {
         handleError( e );
@@ -166,6 +168,7 @@ public class StreamingUpdateSolrServer extends CommonsHttpSolrServer
       finally {
         try {
           // make sure to release the connection
+          if(method != null)
           method.releaseConnection();
         }
         catch( Exception ex ){}
@@ -212,11 +215,11 @@ public class StreamingUpdateSolrServer extends CommonsHttpSolrServer
 
       queue.put( req );
       
+        synchronized( runners ) {
       if( runners.isEmpty() 
         || (queue.remainingCapacity() < queue.size() 
          && runners.size() < threadCount) ) 
       {
-        synchronized( runners ) {
           Runner r = new Runner();
           scheduler.execute( r );
           runners.add( r );