diff --git a/debianutils/start_stop_daemon.c b/debianutils/start_stop_daemon.c
index 2f8e04a78..b6b30e7cc 100644
--- a/debianutils/start_stop_daemon.c
+++ b/debianutils/start_stop_daemon.c
@@ -145,11 +145,18 @@ static void do_procinit(void)
 	procdir = xopendir("/proc");
 
 	pid = 0;
-	while ((entry = readdir(procdir)) != NULL) {
-		pid = bb_strtou(entry->d_name, NULL, 10);
-		if (errno)
-			continue;
-		check(pid);
+ 	while(1) {
+ 		errno = 0; /* clear any previous error */
+ 		entry = readdir(procdir);
+// TODO: check for exact errno(s) which mean that we got stale entry
+ 		if (errno) /* Stale entry, process has died after opendir */
+  			continue;
+ 		if (!entry) /* EOF, no more entries */
+ 			break;
+ 		pid = bb_strtou(entry->d_name, NULL, 10);
+ 		if (errno) /* NaN */
+ 			continue;
+  		check(pid);
 	}
 	closedir(procdir);
 	if (!pid)