diff --git a/testssl.sh b/testssl.sh
index 9f28664..2055285 100755
--- a/testssl.sh
+++ b/testssl.sh
@@ -204,7 +204,7 @@ HEADER_MAXSLEEP=${HEADER_MAXSLEEP:-5}   # we wait this long before killing the p
 MAX_WAITSOCK=${MAX_WAITSOCK:-10}        # waiting at max 10 seconds for socket reply. There shouldn't be any reason to change this.
 CCS_MAX_WAITSOCK=${CCS_MAX_WAITSOCK:-5} # for the two CCS payload (each). There shouldn't be any reason to change this.
 HEARTBLEED_MAX_WAITSOCK=${HEARTBLEED_MAX_WAITSOCK:-8}      # for the heartbleed payload. There shouldn't be any reason to change this.
-STARTTLS_SLEEP=${STARTTLS_SLEEP:-10}    # max time to wait on a socket replay for STARTTLS
+STARTTLS_SLEEP=${STARTTLS_SLEEP:-10}    # max time to wait on a socket reply for STARTTLS
 FAST_STARTTLS=${FAST_STARTTLS:-true}    # at the cost of reliabilty decrease the handshakes for STARTTLS
 USLEEP_SND=${USLEEP_SND:-0.1}           # sleep time for general socket send
 USLEEP_REC=${USLEEP_REC:-0.2}           # sleep time for general socket receive
@@ -7759,14 +7759,16 @@ starttls_just_send2(){
      echo -ne "$1" >&5
 }
 
+# arg1: (optional): wait time
 starttls_just_read(){
+     [[ -z "$1" ]] && waitsleep=$STARTTLS_SLEEP || waitsleep=$1
      debugme echo "=== just read banner ==="
      if [[ "$DEBUG" -ge 2 ]]; then
           cat <&5 &
-          wait_kill $! $STARTTLS_SLEEP
+          wait_kill $! $waitsleep
      else
           dd of=/dev/null count=8 <&5 2>/dev/null &
-          wait_kill $! $STARTTLS_SLEEP
+          wait_kill $! $waitsleep
      fi
 
      return 0
@@ -7895,7 +7897,7 @@ starttls_mysql_dialog() {
      00, 00, 00, 00, 00, 00, 00, 00,
      00, 00, 00, 00, 00, 00, 00"
      code2network "${login_request}"
-     starttls_just_read                     && debugme echo -e "\nreceived server greeting" &&
+     starttls_just_read 1                   && debugme echo -e "\nreceived server greeting" &&
      starttls_just_send2 "$NW_STR"          && debugme echo "initiated STARTTLS"
      # TODO: We could detect if the server supports STARTTLS via the "Server Capabilities"
      # bit field, but we'd need to parse the binary stream, with greater precision than regex.