diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/compactions/Compactor.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/compactions/Compactor.java
index bd9ce6035ad4..2df710de2a85 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/compactions/Compactor.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/compactions/Compactor.java
@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@ protected static class FileDetails {
     /** Earliest put timestamp if major compaction */
     public long earliestPutTs = HConstants.LATEST_TIMESTAMP;
     /** Latest put timestamp */
-    public long latestPutTs = HConstants.LATEST_TIMESTAMP;
+    public long latestPutTs = 0;
     /** The last key in the files we're compacting. */
     public long maxSeqId = 0;
     /** Latest memstore read point found in any of the involved files */
@@ -216,8 +216,9 @@ private FileDetails getFileDetails(Collection<HStoreFile> filesToCompact, boolea
         }
       }
       tmp = fileInfo.get(TIMERANGE_KEY);
-      fd.latestPutTs =
+      long latestPutTs =
         tmp == null ? HConstants.LATEST_TIMESTAMP : TimeRangeTracker.parseFrom(tmp).getMax();
+      fd.latestPutTs = Math.max(fd.latestPutTs, latestPutTs);
       LOG.debug(
         "Compacting {}, keycount={}, bloomtype={}, size={}, "
           + "encoding={}, compression={}, seqNum={}{}",