diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/StringUtils.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/StringUtils.java
index b2c29c4627..67a8f82d93 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/StringUtils.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/StringUtils.java
@@ -202,8 +202,12 @@ public static String uriToString(URI[] uris){
   }
   
   /**
-   * 
    * @param str
+   *          The string array to be parsed into an URI array.
+   * @return <tt>null</tt> if str is <tt>null</tt>, else the URI array
+   *         equivalent to str.
+   * @throws IllegalArgumentException
+   *           If any string in str violates RFC&nbsp;2396.
    */
   public static URI[] stringToURI(String[] str){
     if (str == null) 
@@ -213,9 +217,8 @@ public static URI[] stringToURI(String[] str){
       try{
         uris[i] = new URI(str[i]);
       }catch(URISyntaxException ur){
-        System.out.println("Exception in specified URI's " + StringUtils.stringifyException(ur));
-        //making sure its asssigned to null in case of an error
-        uris[i] = null;
+        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
+            "Failed to create uri for " + str[i], ur);
       }
     }
     return uris;
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/TestStringUtils.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/TestStringUtils.java
index e0dddb2ce4..fc90984608 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/TestStringUtils.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/TestStringUtils.java
@@ -269,6 +269,17 @@ public void testCamelize() {
     assertEquals("Yy", StringUtils.camelize("yY"));
     assertEquals("Zz", StringUtils.camelize("zZ"));
   }
+  
+  @Test
+  public void testStringToURI() {
+    String[] str = new String[] { "file://" };
+    try {
+      StringUtils.stringToURI(str);
+      fail("Ignoring URISyntaxException while creating URI from string file://");
+    } catch (IllegalArgumentException iae) {
+      assertEquals("Failed to create uri for file://", iae.getMessage());
+    }
+  }
 
   // Benchmark for StringUtils split
   public static void main(String []args) {
diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
index 8809870f52..db352254f1 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -236,6 +236,9 @@ Branch-2 ( Unreleased changes )
     HADOOP-8499. Lower min.user.id to 500 for the tests.
     (Colin Patrick McCabe via eli)
 
+    MAPREDUCE-4395. Possible NPE at ClientDistributedCacheManager
+    #determineTimestamps (Bhallamudi via bobby)
+
 Release 2.0.0-alpha - 05-23-2012
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES