diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 5ed9a8f2e32196ab9d325ab77ee83e9f436835e8..0dd855d164dd8b1332c6697f1ec31aa3dfebb0ac 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ OpenLDAP 2.4.22 Engineering
 	Added slapd tools selective iterations (ITS#6442)
 	Added slapo-pbind
 	Fixed libldap GnuTLS serial length (ITS#6460)
+	Fixed slapd acl non-entry internal searches (ITS#6481)
 	Fixed slapd certificateListValidate (ITS#6466)
 	Fixed slapd empty URI parsing (ITS#6465)
 	Fixed slapd ignore controls with unrecognized flags (ITS#6480)
diff --git a/servers/slapd/acl.c b/servers/slapd/acl.c
index d076ad0b62968fda06fc745753648d611707c4c2..a1d52492b667eb9d637da0b55152b1b81bf0d5f0 100644
--- a/servers/slapd/acl.c
+++ b/servers/slapd/acl.c
@@ -2132,7 +2132,16 @@ acl_set_cb_gather( Operation *op, SlapReply *rs )
 		}
 
 	} else {
-		assert( rs->sr_type == REP_RESULT );
+		switch ( rs->sr_type ) {
+		case REP_SEARCHREF:
+		case REP_INTERMEDIATE:
+			/* ignore */
+			break;
+
+		default:
+			assert( rs->sr_type == REP_RESULT );
+			break;
+		}
 	}
 
 	return 0;