/* Doesn't hurt to "reset" the validity timeout */
                fuse_invalidate_entry_cache(entry);
+
+               /* For negative dentries, always do a fresh lookup */
                if (!inode)
                        return 0;
 
                fuse_lookup_init(req, entry->d_parent->d_inode, entry, &outarg);
                request_send(fc, req);
                err = req->out.h.error;
+               /* Zero nodeid is same as -ENOENT */
+               if (!err && !outarg.nodeid)
+                       err = -ENOENT;
                if (!err) {
                        struct fuse_inode *fi = get_fuse_inode(inode);
                        if (outarg.nodeid != get_node_id(inode)) {
        fuse_lookup_init(req, dir, entry, &outarg);
        request_send(fc, req);
        err = req->out.h.error;
-       if (!err && ((outarg.nodeid && invalid_nodeid(outarg.nodeid)) ||
-                    !valid_mode(outarg.attr.mode)))
+       /* Zero nodeid is same as -ENOENT, but with valid timeout */
+       if (!err && outarg.nodeid &&
+           (invalid_nodeid(outarg.nodeid) || !valid_mode(outarg.attr.mode)))
                err = -EIO;
        if (!err && outarg.nodeid) {
                inode = fuse_iget(dir->i_sb, outarg.nodeid, outarg.generation,