diff --git a/chkcrontab_lib.py b/chkcrontab_lib.py
index c1c1004ab8ce41de95bd8e7b49e971eae0a0f4ae..12778cdb7f6b8f452034c4648df8a6c77ee38b3b 100755
--- a/chkcrontab_lib.py
+++ b/chkcrontab_lib.py
@@ -1083,6 +1083,8 @@ def check_crontab(crontab_file, log, whitelisted_users=None):
   cron_line_factory = CronLineFactory()
   with open(crontab_file, 'r') as crontab_f:
     for line in crontab_f:
+      missing_newline = line[-1] != "\n"
+
       line = line.strip()
       line_no += 1
 
@@ -1091,5 +1093,9 @@ def check_crontab(crontab_file, log, whitelisted_users=None):
 
       log.Emit(line_no, line)
 
+      # are we missing a trailing newline?
+      if missing_newline:
+        log.Error('Cron will not process this file - missing trailing newline')
+
   # Summarize the log messages if there were any.
   return log.Summary()