diff --git a/remote-curl.c b/remote-curl.c
index 4fea94f138..083efdf776 100644
--- a/remote-curl.c
+++ b/remote-curl.c
@@ -209,7 +209,8 @@ static struct discovery* discover_refs(const char *service, int for_push)
 	case HTTP_OK:
 		break;
 	case HTTP_MISSING_TARGET:
-		show_http_message(&type, &buffer);
+		if (!show_http_message(&type, &buffer))
+			die("repository '%s' not found", url);
 		die("%s not found: did you run git update-server-info on the"
 		    " server?", refs_url);
 	case HTTP_NOAUTH: