diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
index 6000905a2e86..6c81a3d22d94 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
+++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
@@ -1651,6 +1651,9 @@ extern void modify_prot_commit_ptes(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long ad
  * The contpte APIs are used to transparently manage the contiguous bit in ptes
  * where it is possible and makes sense to do so. The PTE_CONT bit is considered
  * a private implementation detail of the public ptep API (see below).
+ * Single-PTE transparent contpte helpers use pte_valid_cont() to identify
+ * grouped PTEs; explicit contiguous-encoding users such as hugetlb manage
+ * their entries separately.
  */
 extern void __contpte_try_fold(struct mm_struct *mm, unsigned long addr,
 				pte_t *ptep, pte_t pte);
diff --git a/arch/arm64/mm/contpte.c b/arch/arm64/mm/contpte.c
index 0acab179fc1a..be78d8602e51 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/mm/contpte.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/mm/contpte.c
@@ -460,8 +460,10 @@ void contpte_set_ptes(struct mm_struct *mm, unsigned long addr,
 	 */
 	VM_WARN_ON(nr == 1);
 
-	if (!mm_is_user(mm))
+	if (!mm_is_user(mm) || !pte_valid(pte)) {
+		VM_WARN_ON_ONCE(!pte_valid(pte) && pte_cont(pte));
 		return __set_ptes(mm, addr, ptep, pte, nr);
+	}
 
 	end = addr + (nr << PAGE_SHIFT);
 	pfn = pte_pfn(pte);