diff --git a/hack/verify-gofmt.sh b/hack/verify-gofmt.sh
index af1b50675c..eb9d17601c 100755
--- a/hack/verify-gofmt.sh
+++ b/hack/verify-gofmt.sh
@@ -48,7 +48,11 @@ find_files() {
     \) -name '*.go'
 }
 
-diff=$(find_files | xargs ${gofmt} -d -s 2>&1)
+# gofmt exits with non-zero exit code if it finds a problem unrelated to
+# formatting (e.g., a file does not parse correctly). Without "|| true" this
+# would have led to no useful error message from gofmt, because the script would
+# have failed before getting to the "echo" in the block below.
+diff=$(find_files | xargs ${gofmt} -d -s 2>&1) || true
 if [[ -n "${diff}" ]]; then
   echo "${diff}"
   exit 1