diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
index 538105ae88b3b649f2a9aa7809b410312e4ac76e..1ec68083a9290b8844cf24986aa11c7a7368fb8a 100755
--- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl
+++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
@@ -1637,7 +1637,7 @@ sub process {
 	my $signoff = 0;
 	my $is_patch = 0;
 
-	my $in_header_lines = 1;
+	my $in_header_lines = $file ? 0 : 1;
 	my $in_commit_log = 0;		#Scanning lines before patch
 
 	my $non_utf8_charset = 0;
@@ -1993,7 +1993,8 @@ sub process {
 # Check if it's the start of a commit log
 # (not a header line and we haven't seen the patch filename)
 		if ($in_header_lines && $realfile =~ /^$/ &&
-		    $rawline !~ /^(commit\b|from\b|[\w-]+:).+$/i) {
+		    !($rawline =~ /^\s+\S/ ||
+		      $rawline =~ /^(commit\b|from\b|[\w-]+:).*$/i)) {
 			$in_header_lines = 0;
 			$in_commit_log = 1;
 		}