diff --git a/stream.c b/stream.c
index 91ae25e..fad5886 100644
--- a/stream.c
+++ b/stream.c
@@ -1126,24 +1126,20 @@ retry:
 		if (waited)
 			fatal("Failed to decompress in ucompthread\n");
 		print_maxverbose("Unable to decompress in parallel, waiting for previous thread to complete before trying again\n");
-	}
-
-	/* First ready, are up to this thread yet? */
-	if (!waited) {
+		/* This "ready" tells this thread that we're ready to receive
+		 * its data. We do not strictly need to wait for this, so it's
+		 * used when decompression fails due to inadequate memory to
+		 * try again serialised. */
 		wait_sem(&uci->ready);
 		waited = 1;
-	}
-	if (ret)
 		goto retry;
+	}
 
-	/* This complete tells the main thread that this thread has its
+	/* This "complete" tells the main thread that this thread has its
 	 * decompressed data ready */
 	post_sem(&uci->complete);
-	/* Second ready, the buffer has been grabbed by the main thread so this
-	 * thread can exit */
-	wait_sem(&uci->ready);
 
-	print_maxverbose("Thread %ld returning %lld uncompressed bytes from stream %d\n", i, uci->u_len, uci->stream);
+	print_maxverbose("Thread %ld decompressed %lld bytes from stream %d\n", i, uci->u_len, uci->stream);
 
 	return 0;
 }
@@ -1230,21 +1226,22 @@ fill_another:
 		}
 	}
 out:
-	/* This "ready" tells the decompression thread we're up to it */
+	/* "ready" tells the decompression thread we're ready for its data */
 	post_sem(&ucthread[s->unext_thread].ready);
 	/* This "complete" is the deco thread telling us it's finished
 	 * decompressing data */
 	wait_sem(&ucthread[s->unext_thread].complete);
+	print_maxverbose("Taking decompressed data from thread %ld\n", s->unext_thread);
 
 	s->buf = ucthread[s->unext_thread].s_buf;
 	s->buflen = ucthread[s->unext_thread].u_len;
 	s->bufp = 0;
 
-	/* This "ready" tells the decompression thread we've taken the buffer so
-	 * it can exit */
-	post_sem(&ucthread[s->unext_thread].ready);
 	join_pthread(threads[s->unext_thread], NULL);
 	post_sem(&ucthread[s->unext_thread].free);
+	/* As the ready semaphore may or may not have been waited on in
+	 * ucompthread, we reset it regardless. */
+	init_sem(&ucthread[s->unext_thread].ready);
 
 	if (++s->unext_thread == s->base_thread + s->total_threads)
 		s->unext_thread = s->base_thread;