diff --git a/src/log.c b/src/log.c
index dd041d9..1cd98a0 100644
--- a/src/log.c
+++ b/src/log.c
@@ -1505,6 +1505,10 @@
 
 	dataptr = message;
 
+	/* historically some messages used to already contain the trailing LF */
+	if (size && (dataptr[size-1] == '\n'))
+		size--;
+
 	if (logsrv->addr.ss_family == AF_UNSPEC) {
 		/* the socket's address is a file descriptor */
 		plogfd = (int *)&((struct sockaddr_in *)&logsrv->addr)->sin_addr.s_addr;
@@ -1564,7 +1568,7 @@
 		hdr_ptr = hdr;
 		hdr_max = 3;
 		maxlen = logsrv->maxlen - hdr_max;
-		max = MIN(size, maxlen) - 1;
+		max = MIN(size, maxlen - 1);
 		goto send;
 
 	case LOG_FORMAT_RAW:
@@ -1572,7 +1576,7 @@
 		hdr_ptr = hdr = "";
 		hdr_max = 0;
 		maxlen = logsrv->maxlen;
-		max = MIN(size, maxlen) - 1;
+		max = MIN(size, maxlen - 1);
 		goto send;
 
 	default:
@@ -1656,7 +1660,7 @@
 		goto send;
 	}
 
-	max = MIN(size, maxlen - sd_max) - 1;
+	max = MIN(size, maxlen - sd_max - 1);
 send:
 	iovec[0].iov_base = hdr_ptr;
 	iovec[0].iov_len  = hdr_max;