diff --git a/qtest/bin/qtest-driver b/qtest/bin/qtest-driver
index 1519882a..b0b27ad3 100755
--- a/qtest/bin/qtest-driver
+++ b/qtest/bin/qtest-driver
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ require TestDriver;
 
 if ((@ARGV == 1) && ($ARGV[0] eq '--version'))
 {
-    print "$whoami version 1.5\n";
+    print "$whoami version 1.6\n";
     exit 0;
 }
 if ((@ARGV == 1) && ($ARGV[0] eq '--print-path'))
diff --git a/qtest/module/TestDriver.pm b/qtest/module/TestDriver.pm
index bc1cdb1c..c07707c9 100644
--- a/qtest/module/TestDriver.pm
+++ b/qtest/module/TestDriver.pm
@@ -711,9 +711,20 @@ sub runtest
     elsif (defined $in_file)
     {
 	&QTC::TC("testdriver", "TestDriver input file");
-	open($in, '<', $in_file) or
-	    croak +(+__PACKAGE__,
-		    "->runtest: unable to read from input file $in_file: $!\n");
+	if (! open($in, '<', $in_file))
+        {
+            # If the input file is not found, generate a string to use
+            # as input, and make the string different each run to
+            # prevent sloppy commiting of the string as the expected
+            # output. This prevents complete failure in cases when the
+            # input file is not found, such as when one test's input
+            # file is generated by something that may have failed
+            # earlier.
+            my $not_found = "qtest, pid=$$: input file $in_file not found\n";
+            open($in, '<', \$not_found) or
+                croak +(+__PACKAGE__,
+                        "->runtest: unable to read from input file $in_file: $!\n");
+        }
     }
     elsif (defined $in_command)
     {