diff --git a/fs/f2fs/recovery.c b/fs/f2fs/recovery.c
index 2b8a56deb2d218caa2f389d404f022604bc70208..509273a651579f1a639fb1067a7a9a83dec435a9 100644
--- a/fs/f2fs/recovery.c
+++ b/fs/f2fs/recovery.c
@@ -630,6 +630,9 @@ int recover_fsync_data(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, bool check_only)
 		set_ckpt_flags(sbi->ckpt, CP_ERROR_FLAG);
 	mutex_unlock(&sbi->cp_mutex);
 
+	/* let's drop all the directory inodes for clean checkpoint */
+	destroy_fsync_dnodes(&dir_list);
+
 	if (!err && need_writecp) {
 		struct cp_control cpc = {
 			.reason = CP_RECOVERY,
@@ -637,7 +640,6 @@ int recover_fsync_data(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, bool check_only)
 		err = write_checkpoint(sbi, &cpc);
 	}
 
-	destroy_fsync_dnodes(&dir_list);
 	kmem_cache_destroy(fsync_entry_slab);
 	return ret ? ret: err;
 }