diff --git modules/update/update.fetch.inc modules/update/update.fetch.inc
index 2340200..5b1d0c4 100644
--- modules/update/update.fetch.inc
+++ modules/update/update.fetch.inc
@@ -27,25 +27,11 @@ function _update_refresh() {
   $fail = &drupal_static(__FUNCTION__, array());
   module_load_include('inc', 'update', 'update.compare');
 
-  // Since we're fetching new available update data, we want to clear
-  // our cache of both the projects we care about, and the current update
-  // status of the site. We do *not* want to clear the cache of available
-  // releases just yet, since that data (even if it's stale) can be useful
-  // during update_get_projects(); for example, to modules that implement
-  // hook_system_info_alter() such as cvs_deploy.
-  _update_cache_clear('update_project_projects');
-  _update_cache_clear('update_project_data');
-
   $available = array();
   $data = array();
   $site_key = md5($base_url . drupal_get_private_key());
   $projects = update_get_projects();
 
-  // Now that we have the list of projects, we should also clear our cache of
-  // available release data, since even if we fail to fetch new data, we need
-  // to clear out the stale data at this point.
-  _update_cache_clear('update_available_releases');
-
    $max_fetch_attempts = variable_get('update_max_fetch_attempts', UPDATE_MAX_FETCH_ATTEMPTS);
 
   foreach ($projects as $key => $project) {
@@ -53,7 +39,8 @@ function _update_refresh() {
     $fetch_url_base = _update_get_fetch_url_base($project);
     if (empty($fail[$fetch_url_base]) || count($fail[$fetch_url_base]) < $max_fetch_attempts) {
       $xml = drupal_http_request($url);
-      if (isset($xml->data)) {
+      // make sure we have a proper error code
+      if ($xml->code == 200 && isset($xml->data)) {
         $data[] = $xml->data;
       }
       else {
@@ -71,6 +58,15 @@ function _update_refresh() {
     $available = update_parse_xml($data);
   }
   if (!empty($available) && is_array($available)) {
+    // Since we're fetching new available update data, we want to clear our
+    // cache of both the projects we care about, and the current update status
+    // of the site. We do *not* want to clear the cache of available releases
+    // just yet, since that data (even if it's stale) can be useful during
+    // update_get_projects(); for example, to modules that implement
+    // hook_system_info_alter() such as cvs_deploy.
+    _update_cache_clear('update_project_projects');
+    _update_cache_clear('update_project_data');
+
     // Record the projects where we failed to fetch data.
     foreach ($fail as $fetch_url_base => $failures) {
       foreach ($failures as $key => $value) {