diff --git a/src/log.c b/src/log.c
index 5d672942c..622f7f90e 100644
--- a/src/log.c
+++ b/src/log.c
@@ -1571,6 +1571,10 @@ static inline void __do_send_log(struct logsrv *logsrv, int nblogger, char *pid_
 
 	dataptr = message;
 
+	/* historically some messages used to already contain the trailing LF */
+	if (size && (dataptr[size-1] == '\n'))
+		size--;
+
 	if (logsrv->type == LOG_TARGET_FD) {
 		/* the socket's address is a file descriptor */
 		plogfd = (int *)&((struct sockaddr_in *)&logsrv->addr)->sin_addr.s_addr;
@@ -1625,7 +1629,7 @@ static inline void __do_send_log(struct logsrv *logsrv, int nblogger, char *pid_
 		hdr_ptr = hdr;
 		hdr_max = 3;
 		maxlen = logsrv->maxlen - hdr_max;
-		max = MIN(size, maxlen) - 1;
+		max = MIN(size, maxlen - 1);
 		goto send;
 
 	case LOG_FORMAT_RAW:
@@ -1633,7 +1637,7 @@ static inline void __do_send_log(struct logsrv *logsrv, int nblogger, char *pid_
 		hdr_ptr = hdr = "";
 		hdr_max = 0;
 		maxlen = logsrv->maxlen;
-		max = MIN(size, maxlen) - 1;
+		max = MIN(size, maxlen - 1);
 		goto send;
 
 	default:
@@ -1717,7 +1721,7 @@ static inline void __do_send_log(struct logsrv *logsrv, int nblogger, char *pid_
 		goto send;
 	}
 
-	max = MIN(size, maxlen - sd_max) - 1;
+	max = MIN(size, maxlen - sd_max - 1);
 send:
 	if (logsrv->addr.ss_family == AF_UNSPEC) {
 		/* the target is a file descriptor or a ring buffer */