diff --git a/src/util/virerror.c b/src/util/virerror.c
index 3eb4f5d267..ae303d57a5 100644
--- a/src/util/virerror.c
+++ b/src/util/virerror.c
@@ -710,10 +710,19 @@ virRaiseErrorFull(const char *filename ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED,
     if (virErrorLogPriorityFilter)
         priority = virErrorLogPriorityFilter(to, priority);
 
-    virLogMessage(virErrorLogPriorityFilter ? VIR_LOG_FROM_FILE : VIR_LOG_FROM_ERROR,
-                  priority,
-                  filename, linenr, funcname,
-                  meta, "%s", str);
+    /* We don't want to pollute stderr if no logging outputs
+     * are explicitly requested by the user, since the default
+     * error function already pollutes stderr and most apps
+     * hate & thus disable that too. If the daemon has set
+     * a priority filter though, we should always forward
+     * all errors to the logging code.
+     */
+    if (virLogGetNbOutputs() > 0 ||
+        virErrorLogPriorityFilter)
+        virLogMessage(VIR_LOG_FROM_ERROR,
+                      priority,
+                      filename, linenr, funcname,
+                      meta, "%s", str);
 
     errno = save_errno;
 }
diff --git a/src/util/virlog.c b/src/util/virlog.c
index e9bd61b471..801f25952e 100644
--- a/src/util/virlog.c
+++ b/src/util/virlog.c
@@ -882,7 +882,7 @@ virLogVMessage(virLogSource source,
                                str, msg, virLogOutputs[i].data);
         }
     }
-    if ((virLogNbOutputs == 0) && (source != VIR_LOG_FROM_ERROR)) {
+    if (virLogNbOutputs == 0) {
         if (logVersionStderr) {
             const char *rawver;
             char *ver = NULL;