diff --git a/nova/api/metadata/vendordata_dynamic.py b/nova/api/metadata/vendordata_dynamic.py
index db481225badf..7044caab1095 100644
--- a/nova/api/metadata/vendordata_dynamic.py
+++ b/nova/api/metadata/vendordata_dynamic.py
@@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ class DynamicVendorData(vendordata.VendorDataDriver):
             res = self.session.request(url, 'POST', data=jsonutils.dumps(body),
                                        verify=verify, headers=headers,
                                        timeout=timeout)
-            if res:
+            if res and res.text:
                 # TODO(mikal): Use the Cache-Control response header to do some
                 # sensible form of caching here.
                 return jsonutils.loads(res.text)
diff --git a/nova/tests/unit/test_identity.py b/nova/tests/unit/test_identity.py
index ad75d86049f3..e2c12832cc6b 100644
--- a/nova/tests/unit/test_identity.py
+++ b/nova/tests/unit/test_identity.py
@@ -39,7 +39,11 @@ class FakeResponse(object):
 
     def __nonzero__(self):
         # python 2
-        return self.status_code == 200
+        return self.status_code < 400
+
+    @property
+    def text(self):
+        return self.content
 
 
 class IdentityValidationTest(test.NoDBTestCase):
diff --git a/nova/tests/unit/test_metadata.py b/nova/tests/unit/test_metadata.py
index f3f9a7f00587..a43c03c27205 100644
--- a/nova/tests/unit/test_metadata.py
+++ b/nova/tests/unit/test_metadata.py
@@ -54,6 +54,7 @@ from nova import test
 from nova.tests.unit.api.openstack import fakes
 from nova.tests.unit import fake_block_device
 from nova.tests.unit import fake_network
+from nova.tests.unit import test_identity
 from nova.tests import uuidsentinel as uuids
 from nova import utils
 from nova.virt import netutils
@@ -845,9 +846,10 @@ class OpenStackMetadataTestCase(test.TestCase):
 
     def _test_vendordata2_response_inner(self, request_mock, response_code,
                                          include_rest_result=True):
-        request_mock.return_value.status_code = response_code
+        fake_response = test_identity.FakeResponse(response_code)
         if include_rest_result:
-            request_mock.return_value.text = '{"color": "blue"}'
+            fake_response.content = '{"color": "blue"}'
+        request_mock.return_value = fake_response
 
         with utils.tempdir() as tmpdir:
             jsonfile = os.path.join(tmpdir, 'test.json')
@@ -905,6 +907,8 @@ class OpenStackMetadataTestCase(test.TestCase):
 
     @mock.patch.object(session.Session, 'request')
     def test_vendor_data_response_vendordata2_no_content(self, request_mock):
+        # Make it a failure if no content was returned and we don't handle it.
+        self.flags(vendordata_dynamic_failure_fatal=True, group='api')
         self._test_vendordata2_response_inner(request_mock,
                                               requests.codes.NO_CONTENT,
                                               include_rest_result=False)