diff --git a/bin/varnishd/builtin.vcl b/bin/varnishd/builtin.vcl
index 6a0a5baf4bf..6b49d754e17 100644
--- a/bin/varnishd/builtin.vcl
+++ b/bin/varnishd/builtin.vcl
@@ -257,9 +257,18 @@ sub vcl_backend_error {
 }
 
 sub vcl_builtin_backend_error {
+	call vcl_refresh_error;
 	call vcl_beresp_error;
 }
 
+sub vcl_refresh_error {
+	if (beresp.was_304) {
+		unset bereq.http.If-Modified-Since;
+		unset bereq.http.If-None-Match;
+		return (retry(fetch));
+	}
+}
+
 sub vcl_beresp_error {
 	set beresp.http.Content-Type = "text/html; charset=utf-8";
 	set beresp.http.Retry-After = "5";
diff --git a/bin/varnishtest/tests/c00129.vtc b/bin/varnishtest/tests/c00129.vtc
index 38c3bc69252..888f5e39de2 100644
--- a/bin/varnishtest/tests/c00129.vtc
+++ b/bin/varnishtest/tests/c00129.vtc
@@ -29,13 +29,6 @@ varnish v1 -vcl+backend {
 		set beresp.grace = 0s;
 		set beresp.keep = 10s;
 	}
-	sub vcl_backend_error {
-		if (beresp.was_304) {
-			unset bereq.http.If-Modified-Since;
-			unset bereq.http.If-None-Match;
-			return (retry(fetch));
-		}
-	}
 	sub vcl_deliver {
 		set resp.http.obj-hits = obj.hits;
 	}
diff --git a/doc/sphinx/reference/vcl_step.rst b/doc/sphinx/reference/vcl_step.rst
index ee07f616923..fe1b46830ea 100644
--- a/doc/sphinx/reference/vcl_step.rst
+++ b/doc/sphinx/reference/vcl_step.rst
@@ -392,6 +392,10 @@ circumstances, be cautious with putting private information there. If
 you really must, then you need to explicitly set ``beresp.ttl`` to
 zero in ``vcl_backend_error``.
 
+If a conditional fetch failed to process a 304 response and transitioned
+to ``vcl_backend_error``, the backend request is retried for a regular
+fetch within the same transaction.
+
 The `vcl_backend_error` subroutine may terminate with calling ``return()``
 with one of the following keywords:
 
diff --git a/doc/sphinx/reference/vcl_var.rst b/doc/sphinx/reference/vcl_var.rst
index 4697211648b..9bebb64be40 100644
--- a/doc/sphinx/reference/vcl_var.rst
+++ b/doc/sphinx/reference/vcl_var.rst
@@ -1378,7 +1378,8 @@ beresp.was_304
 
 	When ``true`` this indicates that we got a 304 response
 	to our conditional fetch from the backend and turned
-	that into ``beresp.status = 200``
+	that into ``beresp.status = 200``, unless the refresh
+	attempt failed.
 
 
 obj