diff --git a/fs/xfs/scrub/nlinks.c b/fs/xfs/scrub/nlinks.c
index 355ab6de23ea..bcedb8c3e4e6 100644
--- a/fs/xfs/scrub/nlinks.c
+++ b/fs/xfs/scrub/nlinks.c
@@ -382,6 +382,12 @@ xchk_nlinks_ilock_dir(
 {
 	uint			lock_mode = XFS_ILOCK_SHARED;
 
+	/*
+	 * Take the IOLOCK so that other threads cannot start a directory
+	 * update while we're scanning.
+	 */
+	xfs_ilock(ip, XFS_IOLOCK_SHARED);
+
 	/*
 	 * We're going to scan the directory entries, so we must be ready to
 	 * pull the data fork mappings into memory if they aren't already.
@@ -397,13 +403,8 @@ xchk_nlinks_ilock_dir(
 	    xfs_need_iread_extents(&ip->i_af))
 		lock_mode = XFS_ILOCK_EXCL;
 
-	/*
-	 * Take the IOLOCK so that other threads cannot start a directory
-	 * update while we're scanning.
-	 */
-	lock_mode |= XFS_IOLOCK_SHARED;
 	xfs_ilock(ip, lock_mode);
-	return lock_mode;
+	return lock_mode | XFS_IOLOCK_SHARED;
 }
 
 /* Walk a directory to bump the observed link counts of the children. */