diff --git a/CHANGELOG.TXT b/CHANGELOG.TXT
index c96340f2..ded3e36d 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.TXT
+++ b/CHANGELOG.TXT
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ Changes after 2.3.3 release (postfixadmin-2.3 branch)
   - create-domain: force domain name to lowercase to avoid problems with PgSQL
     foreign keys
   - fix vacation.pl to log to "mail" syslog facility
+  - error_log() dovecotpw error messages
 
 Version 2.3.3 - 2011/03/14 - SVN r1010 (postfixadmin-2.3 branch)
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/functions.inc.php b/functions.inc.php
index 70792d35..687fe5f0 100644
--- a/functions.inc.php
+++ b/functions.inc.php
@@ -1234,7 +1234,8 @@ function pacrypt ($pw, $pw_db="")
         # Use proc_open call to avoid safe_mode problems and to prevent showing plain password in process table
         $spec = array(
             0 => array("pipe", "r"), // stdin
-            1 => array("pipe", "w") // stdout
+            1 => array("pipe", "w"), // stdout
+            2 => array("pipe", "w"), // stderr
         );
 
         $pipe = proc_open("$dovecotpw '-s' $method", $spec, $pipes);
@@ -1250,10 +1251,18 @@ function pacrypt ($pw, $pw_db="")
 
             // Read hash from pipe stdout
             $password = fread($pipes[1], "200");
-    		fclose($pipes[1]);
+
+            if ( !preg_match('/^\{' . $method . '\}/', $password)) {
+                $stderr_output = stream_get_contents($pipes[2]);
+                error_log('dovecotpw password encryption failed.');
+                error_log('STDERR output: ' . $stderr_output);
+                die("can't encrypt password with dovecotpw, see error log for details"); 
+            }
+
+            fclose($pipes[1]);
+            fclose($pipes[2]);
             proc_close($pipe);
 
-            if ( !preg_match('/^\{' . $method . '\}/', $password)) { die("can't encrypt password with dovecotpw"); }
             $password = trim(str_replace('{' . $method . '}', '', $password));
         }
     }