diff --git a/src/http_ana.c b/src/http_ana.c
index e92c606..f5c7b0d 100644
--- a/src/http_ana.c
+++ b/src/http_ana.c
@@ -5209,8 +5209,10 @@
 
 	txn->auth.method = HTTP_AUTH_UNKNOWN;
 
-	vars_init(&s->vars_txn,    SCOPE_TXN);
-	vars_init(&s->vars_reqres, SCOPE_REQ);
+	/* here we don't want to re-initialize s->vars_txn and s->vars_reqres
+	 * variable lists, because they were already initialized upon stream
+	 * creation in stream_new(), and thus may already contain some variables
+	 */
 
 	return txn;
 }