diff --git a/http.c b/http.c
index 2b4f6a357c39f3685107da3cf63a9891470a6de9..3a28b219be5ecb270a6ff0422c7a4a5cdda023f0 100644
--- a/http.c
+++ b/http.c
@@ -927,7 +927,7 @@ static int extract_param(const char *raw, const char *name,
 		return -1;
 	raw++;
 
-	while (*raw && !isspace(*raw))
+	while (*raw && !isspace(*raw) && *raw != ';')
 		strbuf_addch(out, *raw++);
 	return 0;
 }
@@ -971,7 +971,7 @@ static void extract_content_type(struct strbuf *raw, struct strbuf *type,
 
 	strbuf_reset(charset);
 	while (*p) {
-		while (isspace(*p))
+		while (isspace(*p) || *p == ';')
 			p++;
 		if (!extract_param(p, "charset", charset))
 			return;
diff --git a/t/lib-httpd/error.sh b/t/lib-httpd/error.sh
index eafc9d2d90ff7646062edd9a376839e469334760..a77b8e546926308fbe348bf01d625bad4996a095 100755
--- a/t/lib-httpd/error.sh
+++ b/t/lib-httpd/error.sh
@@ -19,6 +19,10 @@ case "$PATH_INFO" in
 	printf "text/plain; charset=utf-16"
 	charset=utf-16
 	;;
+*odd-spacing*)
+	printf "text/plain; foo=bar ;charset=utf-16; other=nonsense"
+	charset=utf-16
+	;;
 esac
 printf "\n"
 
diff --git a/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh b/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh
index 01b8aae2ed12eab92ecbfb562cb616e0cfc47202..ac71418a1b26bc17a1252d6831869b96a8d8c176 100755
--- a/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh
+++ b/t/t5550-http-fetch-dumb.sh
@@ -191,5 +191,10 @@ test_expect_success 'http error messages are reencoded' '
 	grep "this is the error message" stderr
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'reencoding is robust to whitespace oddities' '
+	test_must_fail git clone "$HTTPD_URL/error/odd-spacing" 2>stderr &&
+	grep "this is the error message" stderr
+'
+
 stop_httpd
 test_done