diff --git a/meta/lib/oeqa/runtime/cases/ssh.py b/meta/lib/oeqa/runtime/cases/ssh.py
index ae92bb34cd9..9295ed14787 100644
--- a/meta/lib/oeqa/runtime/cases/ssh.py
+++ b/meta/lib/oeqa/runtime/cases/ssh.py
@@ -19,16 +19,18 @@ class SSHTest(OERuntimeTestCase):
           status, output = self.target.run("uname -a", timeout=5)
           if status == 0:
               break
-          elif status == 255:
+          elif status == 255 or status == -15:
               # ssh returns 255 only if a ssh error occurs.  This could
               # be an issue with "Connection refused" because the port
               # isn't open yet, and this could check explicitly for that
               # here.  However, let's keep it simple and just retry for
               # all errors a limited amount of times with a sleep to
               # give it time for the port to open.
+              # We sometimes see -15 on slow emulation machines too, likely
+              # from boot/init not being 100% complete, retry for these too.
               time.sleep(5)
               continue
           else:
-              self.fail("uname failed with \"%s\"" %output)
+              self.fail("uname failed with \"%s\" (exit code %s)" % (output, status))
         if status == 255:
             self.fail("ssh error %s" %output)