diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 1f59d1118..4118d2b1d 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,11 @@
 2006-06-04  David Turner  <david@freetype.org>
 
+  * src/base/ftutil.c (ft_mem_qrealloc): fix the function
+  to accept 'item_size == 0' as well, though this sounds
+  weird, it can theorically happen.
+
+  see bug #16669
+
   * src/pfr/pfrobjs.c (pfr_face_init): fix the computation
   of 'face->num_glyphs' which missed the last glyph, due to
   the offset-by-1 computation, since the PFR format doesn't
diff --git a/src/base/ftutil.c b/src/base/ftutil.c
index 7ad780d38..6331969c5 100644
--- a/src/base/ftutil.c
+++ b/src/base/ftutil.c
@@ -120,12 +120,16 @@
     FT_Error  error = FT_Err_Ok;
 
 
-    if ( cur_count < 0 || new_count < 0 || item_size <= 0 )
+   /* note that we now accept item_size == 0 as a valid
+    * parameter. this in order to cover very weird cases
+    * where a ALLOC_MULT macro would be called
+    */
+    if ( cur_count < 0 || new_count < 0 || item_size < 0 )
     {
       /* may help catch/prevent nasty security issues */
       error = FT_Err_Invalid_Argument;
     }
-    else if ( new_count == 0 )
+    else if ( new_count == 0 || item_size == 0 )
     {
       ft_mem_free( memory, block );
       block = NULL;