diff --git a/src/grep.c b/src/grep.c
index f28f3c2..3e8e662 100644
--- a/src/grep.c
+++ b/src/grep.c
@@ -1729,10 +1729,19 @@ drain_input (int fd, struct stat const *st)
 #ifdef SPLICE_F_MOVE
       /* Should be faster, since it need not copy data to user space.  */
       while ((nbytes = splice (fd, NULL, STDOUT_FILENO, NULL,
-                               INITIAL_BUFSIZE, SPLICE_F_MOVE)))
-        if (nbytes < 0)
-          return false;
-      return true;
+                               INITIAL_BUFSIZE, SPLICE_F_MOVE)) > 0)
+        continue;
+
+      if(nbytes == 0) return true;
+
+      /* STDOUT might have been opened with O_APPEND (gnumake sets this flag for example).
+       * In this case, splice fails with EINVAL. 
+       *
+       * In that case, the safe_read still works so instead of returning with an error here,
+       * we just fall through to the safe_read variant.
+       */
+      if(nbytes < 0 && errno != EINVAL) return false;
+
 #endif
     }
   while ((nbytes = safe_read (fd, buffer, bufalloc)))