diff --git a/drivers/staging/greybus/interface.c b/drivers/staging/greybus/interface.c
index a1435e94f5a1..3b5669375ed3 100644
--- a/drivers/staging/greybus/interface.c
+++ b/drivers/staging/greybus/interface.c
@@ -447,7 +447,8 @@ static int gb_interface_activate_operation(struct gb_interface *intf)
 		return -ENODEV;
 	case GB_SVC_INTF_TYPE_UNIPRO:
 		dev_err(&intf->dev, "interface type UniPro not supported\n");
-		return -ENODEV;
+		/* FIXME: check if this is a Toshiba bridge before retrying? */
+		return -EAGAIN;
 	case GB_SVC_INTF_TYPE_GREYBUS:
 		break;
 	default:
diff --git a/drivers/staging/greybus/module.c b/drivers/staging/greybus/module.c
index 5077253037c8..ea5895475181 100644
--- a/drivers/staging/greybus/module.c
+++ b/drivers/staging/greybus/module.c
@@ -138,13 +138,32 @@ static void gb_module_register_interface(struct gb_interface *intf)
 	struct gb_module *module = intf->module;
 	u8 intf_id = intf->interface_id;
 	int ret;
+	int retries = 3;
 
 	mutex_lock(&intf->mutex);
 
-	ret = gb_interface_activate(intf);
+	while (retries--) {
+		ret = gb_interface_activate(intf);
+		if (ret != -EAGAIN)
+			break;
+	}
 	if (ret) {
 		dev_err(&module->dev, "failed to activate interface %u: %d\n",
 				intf_id, ret);
+
+		/*
+		 * -EAGAIN indicates that the Greybus operation
+		 * interface_activate determined the remote interface to be
+		 * UniPro-only.  At present, we assume a UniPro-only module
+		 * to be a Greybus module that failed to send its mailbox
+		 * poke.  There is some reason to believe that this is
+		 * because of a bug in the ES3 bootrom.  If we exhause our
+		 * retries trying to activate such an interface, convert
+		 * the error code back into a "no device" error.
+		 */
+		if (ret == -EAGAIN)
+			ret = -ENODEV;
+
 		gb_interface_add(intf);
 		goto err_unlock;
 	}