diff --git a/src/chain/chain-training.cc b/src/chain/chain-training.cc
index 59fdfb4bbc0..1d357ace106 100644
--- a/src/chain/chain-training.cc
+++ b/src/chain/chain-training.cc
@@ -89,7 +89,9 @@ void ComputeChainObjfAndDerivE2e(const ChainTrainingOptions &opts,
       if (nnet_output_deriv)
         nnet_output_deriv->AddMat(1.0, *xent_output_deriv);
     } else if (nnet_output_deriv && numerator_ok) {
-      numerator.Backward(nnet_output_deriv);
+      numerator_ok = numerator.Backward(nnet_output_deriv);
+      if (!numerator_ok)
+        KALDI_LOG << "Numerator backward failed.";
     }
   }
 
@@ -128,9 +130,8 @@ void ComputeChainObjfAndDerivE2e(const ChainTrainingOptions &opts,
     KALDI_LOG << "Derivs per frame are " << row_products_per_frame;
   }
 
-  if (opts.l2_regularize == 0.0) {
-    *l2_term = 0.0;
-  } else if (numerator_ok) {  // we should have some derivs to include a L2 term
+  *l2_term = 0.0;
+  if (opts.l2_regularize != 0.0 && numerator_ok) {  // we should have some derivs to include a L2 term
     // compute the l2 penalty term and its derivative
     BaseFloat scale = supervision.weight * opts.l2_regularize;
     *l2_term = -0.5 * scale * TraceMatMat(nnet_output, nnet_output, kTrans);