diff --git a/doc/Changelog b/doc/Changelog
index 6df5a9a9a..043518a89 100644
--- a/doc/Changelog
+++ b/doc/Changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+29 October 2009: Wouter
+	- removed abort on prealloc failure, error still printed but softfail.
+
 27 October 2009: Wouter
 	- iana portlist updated.
 
diff --git a/util/alloc.c b/util/alloc.c
index 73a354319..3fe09f790 100644
--- a/util/alloc.c
+++ b/util/alloc.c
@@ -69,8 +69,10 @@ prealloc(struct alloc_cache* alloc)
 	alloc_special_t* p;
 	int i;
 	for(i=0; i<ALLOC_SPECIAL_MAX; i++) {
-		if(!(p = (alloc_special_t*)malloc(sizeof(alloc_special_t))))
-			fatal_exit("prealloc: out of memory");
+		if(!(p = (alloc_special_t*)malloc(sizeof(alloc_special_t)))) {
+			log_err("prealloc: out of memory");
+			return;
+		}
 		alloc_setup_special(p);
 		alloc_set_special_next(p, alloc->quar);
 		alloc->quar = p;
@@ -86,7 +88,10 @@ prealloc_blocks(struct alloc_cache* alloc, size_t num)
 	struct regional* r;
 	for(i=0; i<num; i++) {
 		r = regional_create_custom(ALLOC_REG_SIZE);
-		if(!r) fatal_exit("prealloc blocks: out of memory");
+		if(!r) {
+			log_err("prealloc blocks: out of memory");
+			return;
+		}
 		r->next = (char*)alloc->reg_list;
 		alloc->reg_list = r;
 		alloc->num_reg_blocks ++;