diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 99481b0e6439e7a6967b997546b6996d3f86c725..0fa36a005b6f928942ca2e1d15f60050c5bc95c7 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -29,6 +29,8 @@ documents those changes that are of interest to users and admins.
     you could get multiple '*' wckeys.
  -- Fix bug which could report to squeue the wrong partition for a running job
     that is submitted to multiple partitions.
+ -- If failed to rmdir() a cgroup ignore the error preventing slurmstepd to
+    loop forever.
 
 * Changes in Slurm 14.03.4
 ==========================
diff --git a/src/plugins/proctrack/cgroup/proctrack_cgroup.c b/src/plugins/proctrack/cgroup/proctrack_cgroup.c
index d3608d3dd934e5b3e8da0f65119348f6d58558ba..e92386937d6bde9186e632885a06d38cf3324a31 100644
--- a/src/plugins/proctrack/cgroup/proctrack_cgroup.c
+++ b/src/plugins/proctrack/cgroup/proctrack_cgroup.c
@@ -287,8 +287,11 @@ int _slurm_cgroup_destroy(void)
 		if (xcgroup_delete(&step_freezer_cg) != XCGROUP_SUCCESS) {
 			error("_slurm_cgroup_destroy: problem deleting step "
 			      "cgroup path %s: %m", step_freezer_cg.path);
+			/* Ignore the error since the cgroup will
+			 * be eventually cleaned up by the release
+			 * script.
+			 */
 			xcgroup_unlock(&freezer_cg);
-			return SLURM_ERROR;
 		}
 		xcgroup_destroy(&step_freezer_cg);
 	}