diff --git a/modules/ve-mw/init/targets/ve.init.mw.ArticleTarget.js b/modules/ve-mw/init/targets/ve.init.mw.ArticleTarget.js
index bbcee816cf..cad168d44a 100644
--- a/modules/ve-mw/init/targets/ve.init.mw.ArticleTarget.js
+++ b/modules/ve-mw/init/targets/ve.init.mw.ArticleTarget.js
@@ -1545,11 +1545,14 @@ ve.init.mw.ArticleTarget.prototype.getWikitextDiffPromise = function ( doc ) {
 			oldid: this.revid,
 			etag: this.etag
 		}, 'diff' ).then( function ( data ) {
-			if ( data.result === 'nochanges' ) {
+			return data.diff;
+		}, function ( code, response ) {
+			// ArticleTargetSaver treats this as an error, this is silly
+			if ( response.visualeditoredit && response.visualeditoredit.result === 'nochanges' ) {
 				target.emit( 'noChanges' );
 				return null;
 			}
-			return data.diff;
+			return ve.createDeferred().reject( code, response ).promise();
 		} );
 		this.wikitextDiffPromise
 			.done( this.emit.bind( this, 'showChanges' ) )
diff --git a/modules/ve-mw/preinit/ve.init.mw.ArticleTargetSaver.js b/modules/ve-mw/preinit/ve.init.mw.ArticleTargetSaver.js
index a6f9cb2d85..7b61379ad7 100644
--- a/modules/ve-mw/preinit/ve.init.mw.ArticleTargetSaver.js
+++ b/modules/ve-mw/preinit/ve.init.mw.ArticleTargetSaver.js
@@ -256,11 +256,11 @@
 							html: 'Invalid response from server'
 						};
 					} else if ( data.result !== 'success' ) {
-						// Note, this could be any of db failure, hookabort, badtoken or even a captcha
-						error = {
-							code: 'failure',
-							html: 'Save failure: ' + mw.html.escape( data.result )
-						};
+						// This can only happen when:
+						// * viewing a diff with no changes (`data.result === 'nochanges'`)
+						// * saving an edit and getting a captcha (`data.result === 'error'`)
+						// It's a silly special case...
+						return $.Deferred().reject( 'no-error-no-success', response ).promise();
 					} else {
 						// paction specific errors
 						switch ( data.paction ) {