diff --git a/fs/btrfs/inode-map.c b/fs/btrfs/inode-map.c
index 7c4d0107c6fb..c7dcb7c52108 100644
--- a/fs/btrfs/inode-map.c
+++ b/fs/btrfs/inode-map.c
@@ -41,8 +41,10 @@ static int caching_kthread(void *data)
 		return 0;
 
 	path = btrfs_alloc_path();
-	if (!path)
+	if (!path) {
+		fail_caching_thread(root);
 		return -ENOMEM;
+	}
 
 	/* Since the commit root is read-only, we can safely skip locking. */
 	path->skip_locking = 1;