diff -r ab9d6c4907e7 Lib/test/test_codecs.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_codecs.py	Thu Apr 19 23:55:01 2012 +0200
+++ b/Lib/test/test_codecs.py	Wed Apr 25 20:08:19 2012 +0300
@@ -495,7 +495,20 @@
         )
 
     def test_errors(self):
-        self.assertRaises(UnicodeDecodeError, codecs.utf_16_le_decode, "\xff", "strict", True)
+        tests = [
+            (b'\xff', u'\ufffd'),
+            (b'A\x00Z', u'A\ufffd'),
+            (b'A\x00B\x00C\x00D\x00Z', u'ABCD\ufffd'),
+            (b'\x00\xd8', u'\ufffd'),
+            (b'\x00\xd8A', u'\ufffd'),
+            (b'\x00\xd8A\x00', u'\ufffdA'),
+            (b'\x00\xdcA\x00', u'\ufffdA'),
+        ]
+        for raw, expected in tests:
+            print('*****', raw, expected)
+            self.assertRaises(UnicodeDecodeError, codecs.utf_16_le_decode,
+                              raw, 'strict', True)
+            self.assertEqual(raw.decode('utf-16le', 'replace'), expected)
 
 class UTF16BETest(ReadTest):
     encoding = "utf-16-be"
@@ -516,7 +529,20 @@
         )
 
     def test_errors(self):
-        self.assertRaises(UnicodeDecodeError, codecs.utf_16_be_decode, "\xff", "strict", True)
+        tests = [
+            (b'\xff', u'\ufffd'),
+            (b'\x00A\xff', u'A\ufffd'),
+            (b'\x00A\x00B\x00C\x00DZ', u'ABCD\ufffd'),
+            (b'\xd8\x00', u'\ufffd'),
+            (b'\xd8\x00\xdc', u'\ufffd'),
+            (b'\xd8\x00\x00A', u'\ufffdA'),
+            (b'\xdc\x00\x00A', u'\ufffdA'),
+        ]
+        for raw, expected in tests:
+            print('*****', raw, expected)
+            self.assertRaises(UnicodeDecodeError, codecs.utf_16_be_decode,
+                              raw, 'strict', True)
+            self.assertEqual(raw.decode('utf-16be', 'replace'), expected)
 
 class UTF8Test(ReadTest):
     encoding = "utf-8"
diff -r ab9d6c4907e7 Objects/unicodeobject.c
--- a/Objects/unicodeobject.c	Thu Apr 19 23:55:01 2012 +0200
+++ b/Objects/unicodeobject.c	Wed Apr 25 20:08:19 2012 +0300
@@ -2564,7 +2564,7 @@
         }
 
         /* UTF-16 code pair: */
-        if (q >= e) {
+        if (e - q < 2) {
             errmsg = "unexpected end of data";
             startinpos = (((const char *)q)-2)-starts;
             endinpos = ((const char *)e)-starts;