diff --git a/read-cache.c b/read-cache.c
index b211c57af6..7d00265c49 100644
--- a/read-cache.c
+++ b/read-cache.c
@@ -2103,7 +2103,9 @@ static int ce_write_entry(git_SHA_CTX *c, int fd, struct cache_entry *ce,
 		if (!result)
 			result = ce_write(c, fd, to_remove_vi, prefix_size);
 		if (!result)
-			result = ce_write(c, fd, ce->name + common, ce_namelen(ce) - common + 1);
+			result = ce_write(c, fd, ce->name + common, ce_namelen(ce) - common);
+		if (!result)
+			result = ce_write(c, fd, padding, 1);
 
 		strbuf_splice(previous_name, common, to_remove,
 			      ce->name + common, ce_namelen(ce) - common);
diff --git a/t/helper/.gitignore b/t/helper/.gitignore
index 721650256e..7c9d28a834 100644
--- a/t/helper/.gitignore
+++ b/t/helper/.gitignore
@@ -35,3 +35,4 @@
 /test-svn-fe
 /test-urlmatch-normalization
 /test-wildmatch
+/test-write-cache