diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 9eb85b256..6b7efad1b 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
+2009-08-13 m. allan noah <kitno455 at gmail dot com>
+	* tools/sane-desc.c: add closedir call to fix bug #311880, patch
+	  from Johannes Meixner
+
 2009-08-08 Julien Blache <jb@jblache.org>
-	- frontend/saned.c: run_standalone(), explicitely check for errors
+	* frontend/saned.c: run_standalone(), explicitely check for errors
 	on fds.
 
 2009-08-07 m. allan noah <kitno455 at gmail dot com>
diff --git a/tools/sane-desc.c b/tools/sane-desc.c
index 340229de6..16622dc55 100644
--- a/tools/sane-desc.c
+++ b/tools/sane-desc.c
@@ -1523,6 +1523,12 @@ read_files (void)
 	      fclose (fp);
 	    }			/* if (strlen) */
 	}			/* while (direntry) */
+      if (closedir(dir) != 0)
+	{
+	  DBG_ERR ("cannot close directory `%s' (%s)\n", search_dir,
+		   strerror (errno));
+	  return SANE_FALSE;
+	}
       if (end)
 	search_dir = end + 1;
       else