diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index fb4f564..8be40ff 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -24,7 +24,10 @@ ubuntu-dev-tools (0.73) karmic; urgency=low
   * requestsync:
     - Send a "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8" header (LP: #246307).
 
- -- Colin Watson <cjwatson@ubuntu.com>  Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:39:15 +0100
+  [ Daniel Hahler ]
+  * grab-merge: Output error message in case wget/rsync fails.
+
+ -- Daniel Hahler <ubuntu@thequod.de>  Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:18:38 +0200
 
 ubuntu-dev-tools (0.72) jaunty; urgency=low
 
diff --git a/grab-merge b/grab-merge
index 31b967d..855c32e 100755
--- a/grab-merge
+++ b/grab-merge
@@ -57,15 +57,17 @@ else
 fi
 
 if [ "$RSYNC" = "y" ]; then
+    URL="merges.ubuntu.com:/srv/patches.ubuntu.com/merges/$HASH/$MERGE/"
     rsync --verbose --archive --progress --compress --delete \
-	merges.ubuntu.com:/srv/patches.ubuntu.com/merges/$HASH/$MERGE/ .
+	"$URL" . || { echo "Error while rsyncing $URL"; exit 1; }
 else
     rm -rf  *
     wget -q https://merges.ubuntu.com/$HASH/$MERGE/REPORT
 
     for NAME in $(sed -n -e "/^    /p" REPORT); do
 	echo "Getting $NAME..."
-	[ -f $NAME ] || wget -q https://merges.ubuntu.com/$HASH/$MERGE/$NAME
+	URL="https://merges.ubuntu.com/$HASH/$MERGE/$NAME/foo"
+	wget -q "$URL" || { echo "Error downloading $URL"; exit 1; }
     done
 fi
 echo