diff --git a/src/proto_tcp.c b/src/proto_tcp.c
index 17a100ad5..21b17715c 100644
--- a/src/proto_tcp.c
+++ b/src/proto_tcp.c
@@ -552,15 +552,25 @@ int tcp_drain(int fd)
 }
 
 /* This is the callback which is set when a connection establishment is pending
- * and we have nothing to send, or if we have an init function we want to call
- * once the connection is established. It updates the FD polling status. It
- * returns 0 if it fails in a fatal way or needs to poll to go further, otherwise
- * it returns non-zero and removes itself from the connection's flags (the bit is
- * provided in <flag> by the caller).
+ * and we have nothing to send. It updates the FD polling status. It returns 0
+ * if it fails in a fatal way or needs to poll to go further, otherwise it
+ * returns non-zero and removes the CO_FL_WAIT_L4_CONN flag from the connection's
+ * flags. In case of error, it sets CO_FL_ERROR and leaves the error code in
+ * errno. The error checking is done in two passes in order to limit the number
+ * of syscalls in the normal case :
+ *   - if POLL_ERR was reported by the poller, we check for a pending error on
+ *     the socket before proceeding. If found, it's assigned to errno so that
+ *     upper layers can see it.
+ *   - otherwise connect() is used to check the connection state again, since
+ *     the getsockopt return cannot reliably be used to know if the connection
+ *     is still pending or ready. This one may often return an error as well,
+ *     since we don't always have POLL_ERR (eg: OSX or cached events).
  */
 int tcp_connect_probe(struct connection *conn)
 {
 	int fd = conn->t.sock.fd;
+	socklen_t lskerr;
+	int skerr;
 
 	if (conn->flags & CO_FL_ERROR)
 		return 0;
@@ -568,15 +578,24 @@ int tcp_connect_probe(struct connection *conn)
 	if (!(conn->flags & CO_FL_WAIT_L4_CONN))
 		return 1; /* strange we were called while ready */
 
-	/* stop here if we reached the end of data */
-	if ((fdtab[fd].ev & (FD_POLL_IN|FD_POLL_HUP)) == FD_POLL_HUP)
-		goto out_error;
+	/* we might be the first witness of FD_POLL_ERR. Note that FD_POLL_HUP
+	 * without FD_POLL_IN also indicates a hangup without input data meaning
+	 * there was no connection.
+	 */
+	if (fdtab[fd].ev & FD_POLL_ERR ||
+	    (fdtab[fd].ev & (FD_POLL_IN|FD_POLL_HUP)) == FD_POLL_HUP) {
+		skerr = 0;
+		lskerr = sizeof(skerr);
+		getsockopt(fd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ERROR, &skerr, &lskerr);
+		errno = skerr;
+		if (errno == EAGAIN)
+			errno = 0;
+		if (errno)
+			goto out_error;
+	}
 
-	/* We have no data to send to check the connection, and
-	 * getsockopt() will not inform us whether the connection
-	 * is still pending. So we'll reuse connect() to check the
-	 * state of the socket. This has the advantage of giving us
-	 * the following info :
+	/* Use connect() to check the state of the socket. This has the
+	 * advantage of giving us the following info :
 	 *  - error
 	 *  - connecting (EALREADY, EINPROGRESS)
 	 *  - connected (EISCONN, 0)