diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.HDFS-3042.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.HDFS-3042.txt
index 8e523dca9c..bdbf417638 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.HDFS-3042.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.HDFS-3042.txt
@@ -9,3 +9,5 @@ HDFS-2185. HDFS portion of ZK-based FailoverController (todd)
 HDFS-3200. Scope all ZKFC configurations by nameservice (todd)
 
 HDFS-3223. add zkfc to hadoop-daemon.sh script (todd)
+
+HDFS-3261. TestHASafeMode fails on HDFS-3042 branch (todd)
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/ha/TestHASafeMode.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/ha/TestHASafeMode.java
index 885ff01c35..5af5391072 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/ha/TestHASafeMode.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/ha/TestHASafeMode.java
@@ -34,6 +34,8 @@
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FSDataOutputStream;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileSystem;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path;
+import org.apache.hadoop.ha.HAServiceProtocol.RequestSource;
+import org.apache.hadoop.ha.HAServiceProtocol.StateChangeRequestInfo;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.DFSConfigKeys;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.DFSTestUtil;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.HAUtil;
@@ -129,7 +131,8 @@ public void testEnterSafeModeInANNShouldNotThrowNPE() throws Exception {
     DFSTestUtil
       .createFile(fs, new Path("/test"), 3 * BLOCK_SIZE, (short) 3, 1L);
     restartActive();
-    cluster.transitionToActive(0);
+    nn0.getRpcServer().transitionToActive(
+        new StateChangeRequestInfo(RequestSource.REQUEST_BY_USER));
 
     FSNamesystem namesystem = nn0.getNamesystem();
     String status = namesystem.getSafemode();