diff --git a/doc/publican/sources/Protocol.xml b/doc/publican/sources/Protocol.xml
index 38243fa7..af5f437d 100644
--- a/doc/publican/sources/Protocol.xml
+++ b/doc/publican/sources/Protocol.xml
@@ -110,8 +110,9 @@
 	</listitem>
 	<listitem>
 	  <para>
-	    The second has 2 parts of 16-bit.  The upper 16-bits are the message
-	    size in bytes, starting at the header (i.e. it has a minimum value of 8).The lower is the request/event opcode.
+	    The second has 2 parts of 16 bits each.  The upper 16 bits are the message
+	    size in bytes, starting at the header (i.e. it has a minimum value of 8).
+	    The lower is the request/event opcode.  The size must be a multiple of 4.
 	  </para>
 	</listitem>
       </itemizedlist>
diff --git a/src/connection.c b/src/connection.c
index e1b751ac..93f5a090 100644
--- a/src/connection.c
+++ b/src/connection.c
@@ -902,7 +902,14 @@ wl_connection_demarshal(struct wl_connection *connection,
 
 	/* Space for sender_id and opcode */
 	if (size < 2 * sizeof *p) {
-		wl_log("message too short, invalid header\n");
+		wl_log("message length %" PRIu32 " too short, invalid header\n", size);
+		wl_connection_consume(connection, size);
+		errno = EINVAL;
+		return NULL;
+	}
+
+	if (size % sizeof *p) {
+		wl_log("message length %" PRIu32 " invalid, not multiple of 4 bytes", size);
 		wl_connection_consume(connection, size);
 		errno = EINVAL;
 		return NULL;
diff --git a/src/wayland-server.c b/src/wayland-server.c
index 1d6be3ec..b7158244 100644
--- a/src/wayland-server.c
+++ b/src/wayland-server.c
@@ -400,6 +400,15 @@ wl_client_connection_data(int fd, uint32_t mask, void *data)
 		if (len < size)
 			break;
 
+		if ((size & 3) != 0) {
+			/* Post a better error than "invalid arguments" */
+			wl_resource_post_error(client->display_resource,
+			                       WL_DISPLAY_ERROR_INVALID_METHOD,
+			                       "message length %u is not multiple of 4",
+			                       size);
+			break;
+		}
+
 		resource = wl_map_lookup(&client->objects, p[0]);
 		resource_flags = wl_map_lookup_flags(&client->objects, p[0]);
 		if (resource == NULL) {