diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/libpq.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/libpq.sgml
index a97af98979b..924b7ce50e1 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/libpq.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/libpq.sgml
@@ -7495,6 +7495,16 @@ myEventProc(PGEventId evtId, void *evtInfo, void *passThrough)
      </para>
     </listitem>
 
+    <listitem>
+     <para>
+      <indexterm>
+       <primary><envar>PGGSSENCMODE</envar></primary>
+      </indexterm>
+      <envar>PGGSSENCMODE</envar> behaves the same as the <xref
+      linkend="libpq-connect-gssencmode"/> connection parameter.
+     </para>
+    </listitem>
+
     <listitem>
      <para>
       <indexterm>
diff --git a/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-connect.c b/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-connect.c
index 68cf4224570..5dcc7d76922 100644
--- a/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-connect.c
+++ b/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-connect.c
@@ -308,7 +308,7 @@ static const internalPQconninfoOption PQconninfoOptions[] = {
 	 * Expose gssencmode similarly to sslmode - we can still handle "disable"
 	 * and "prefer".
 	 */
-	{"gssencmode", "PGGSSMODE", DefaultGSSMode, NULL,
+	{"gssencmode", "PGGSSENCMODE", DefaultGSSMode, NULL,
 		"GSS-Mode", "", 7,		/* sizeof("disable") == 7 */
 	offsetof(struct pg_conn, gssencmode)},
 
@@ -1875,7 +1875,7 @@ connectDBStart(PGconn *conn)
 	resetPQExpBuffer(&conn->errorMessage);
 
 #ifdef ENABLE_GSS
-	if (conn->gssencmode[0] == 'd')	/* "disable" */
+	if (conn->gssencmode[0] == 'd') /* "disable" */
 		conn->try_gss = false;
 #endif
 
diff --git a/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-secure-gssapi.c b/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-secure-gssapi.c
index ea1c1cd7b71..ec2a4c64786 100644
--- a/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-secure-gssapi.c
+++ b/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-secure-gssapi.c
@@ -459,42 +459,24 @@ pqsecure_open_gss(PGconn *conn)
 		 *
 		 * This is safe to do because we shouldn't ever get a packet over 8192
 		 * and therefore the actual length bytes, being that they are in
-		 * network byte order, for any real packet will be two zero bytes.
+		 * network byte order, for any real packet will start with two zero
+		 * bytes.
 		 */
 		if (PqGSSRecvBuffer[0] == 'E')
 		{
 			/*
-			 * For an error message, the length is after the E, so read one
-			 * more byte to get the full length
+			 * For an error packet during startup, we don't get a length, so
+			 * simply read as much as we can fit into our buffer (as a string,
+			 * so leave a spot at the end for a NULL byte too) and report that
+			 * back to the caller.
 			 */
-			result = gss_read(conn, PqGSSRecvBuffer + PqGSSRecvLength, 1, &ret);
+			result = gss_read(conn, PqGSSRecvBuffer + PqGSSRecvLength, PQ_GSS_RECV_BUFFER_SIZE - PqGSSRecvLength - 1, &ret);
 			if (result != PGRES_POLLING_OK)
 				return result;
 
 			PqGSSRecvLength += ret;
 
-			if (PqGSSRecvLength < 1 + sizeof(uint32))
-				return PGRES_POLLING_READING;
-
-			input.length = ntohl(*(uint32 *) PqGSSRecvBuffer + 1);
-			if (input.length > PQ_GSS_RECV_BUFFER_SIZE - sizeof(uint32) - 1)
-			{
-				printfPQExpBuffer(&conn->errorMessage, libpq_gettext("Over-size error packet sent by the server."));
-				return PGRES_POLLING_FAILED;
-			}
-
-			result = gss_read(conn, PqGSSRecvBuffer + PqGSSRecvLength, input.length - PqGSSRecvLength - 1 - sizeof(uint32), &ret);
-			if (result != PGRES_POLLING_OK)
-				return result;
-
-			PqGSSRecvLength += ret;
-
-			if (PqGSSRecvLength < 1 + sizeof(uint32) + input.length)
-				return PGRES_POLLING_READING;
-
-			printfPQExpBuffer(&conn->errorMessage,
-							  libpq_gettext("Server error: %s"),
-							  PqGSSRecvBuffer + 1 + sizeof(int32));
+			printfPQExpBuffer(&conn->errorMessage, "%s", PqGSSRecvBuffer + 1);
 
 			return PGRES_POLLING_FAILED;
 		}