diff --git a/drivers/usb/gadget/ether.c b/drivers/usb/gadget/ether.c
index ff244f42723f..9f4fd7e849a0 100644
--- a/drivers/usb/gadget/ether.c
+++ b/drivers/usb/gadget/ether.c
@@ -1957,8 +1957,20 @@ static int eth_start_xmit (struct sk_buff *skb, struct net_device *net)
 	}
 
 	spin_lock_irqsave(&dev->req_lock, flags);
+	/*
+	 * this freelist can be empty if an interrupt triggered disconnect()
+	 * and reconfigured the gadget (shutting down this queue) after the
+	 * network stack decided to xmit but before we got the spinlock.
+	 */
+	if (list_empty(&dev->tx_reqs)) {
+		spin_unlock_irqrestore(&dev->req_lock, flags);
+		return 1;
+	}
+
 	req = container_of (dev->tx_reqs.next, struct usb_request, list);
 	list_del (&req->list);
+
+	/* temporarily stop TX queue when the freelist empties */
 	if (list_empty (&dev->tx_reqs))
 		netif_stop_queue (net);
 	spin_unlock_irqrestore(&dev->req_lock, flags);