diff --git a/fs/btrfs/inode.c b/fs/btrfs/inode.c
index 6daa7bb027fc..2ae5a9b2f951 100644
--- a/fs/btrfs/inode.c
+++ b/fs/btrfs/inode.c
@@ -1061,6 +1061,12 @@ static void compress_file_range(struct btrfs_work *work)
 			mapping_set_error(mapping, -EIO);
 		return;
 	}
+	/*
+	 * If a single block at file offset 0 cannot be inlined, fall back to
+	 * regular writes without marking the file incompressible.
+	 */
+	if (start == 0 && end <= blocksize)
+		goto cleanup_and_bail_uncompressed;
 
 	/*
 	 * We aren't doing an inline extent. Round the compressed size up to a