diff --git a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTP.java b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTP.java
index 16d124a2..8b839b3b 100644
--- a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTP.java
+++ b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTP.java
@@ -852,10 +852,10 @@ public class FetchHTTP extends Processor implements Lifecycle {
             hcChallengeHeaders = authStrategy.getChallenges(null, response, null);
         } catch (MalformedChallengeException e) {
             logger.fine("Failed challenge parse: " + e.getMessage());
+            hcChallengeHeaders = new HashMap<String, Header>();
         }
-        if (hcChallengeHeaders == null || hcChallengeHeaders.size() <= 0) {
-            logger.fine("Failed to get auth challenge headers for " + curi);
-            return null;
+        if (hcChallengeHeaders.size() < 1) {
+            logger.warning("Failed to extract auth challenge headers for uri with response status 401: " + curi);
         }
 
         // reorganize in non-library-specific way
diff --git a/modules/src/test/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPTest.java b/modules/src/test/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPTest.java
index 3fdbf03b..077a10bb 100644
--- a/modules/src/test/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPTest.java
+++ b/modules/src/test/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPTest.java
@@ -135,6 +135,13 @@ public class FetchHTTPTest extends ProcessorTestBase {
                 response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_OK);
                 response.getOutputStream().write(DEFAULT_GZIPPED_PAYLOAD);
                 ((Request)request).setHandled(true);
+            } else if (target.equals("/401-no-challenge")) {
+                response.setStatus(401);
+                response.setContentType("text/plain;charset=US-ASCII");
+                response.setDateHeader("Last-Modified", 0);
+                response.setHeader("ETag", ETAG_TEST_VALUE);
+                response.getOutputStream().write(DEFAULT_PAYLOAD_STRING.getBytes("US-ASCII"));
+                ((Request)request).setHandled(true);
             } else {
                 response.setContentType("text/plain;charset=US-ASCII");
                 response.setDateHeader("Last-Modified", 0);
diff --git a/modules/src/test/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPTests.java b/modules/src/test/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPTests.java
index e961c703..4f2c44d6 100644
--- a/modules/src/test/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPTests.java
+++ b/modules/src/test/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPTests.java
@@ -142,7 +142,9 @@ public class FetchHTTPTests extends ProcessorTestBase {
         assertEquals(Charset.forName("US-ASCII"), curi.getRecorder().getCharset());
         assertTrue(curi.getCredentials().isEmpty());
         assertTrue(curi.getFetchDuration() >= 0);
-        assertTrue(curi.getFetchStatus() == 200);
+        if (!exclusions.contains("fetchStatus")) {
+            assertTrue(curi.getFetchStatus() == 200);
+        }
         assertTrue(curi.getFetchType() == FetchType.HTTP_GET);
         
         // check message body, i.e. "raw, possibly chunked-transfer-encoded message contents not including the leading headers"
@@ -322,6 +324,13 @@ public class FetchHTTPTests extends ProcessorTestBase {
         runDefaultChecks(curi, "requestLine", "hostHeader");
     }
     
+    public void test401NoChallenge() throws URIException, IOException, InterruptedException {
+        CrawlURI curi = makeCrawlURI("http://localhost:7777/401-no-challenge");
+        fetcher().process(curi);
+        assertEquals(401, curi.getFetchStatus());
+        runDefaultChecks(curi, "requestLine", "fetchStatus");
+    }
+    
     protected void checkSetCookieURI() throws URIException, IOException,
             InterruptedException, UnsupportedEncodingException {
         CrawlURI curi = makeCrawlURI("http://localhost:7777/set-cookie");