diff --git a/orte/mca/oob/tcp/help-oob-tcp.txt b/orte/mca/oob/tcp/help-oob-tcp.txt
index e5562ac470..8af0589032 100644
--- a/orte/mca/oob/tcp/help-oob-tcp.txt
+++ b/orte/mca/oob/tcp/help-oob-tcp.txt
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 #                         University of Stuttgart.  All rights reserved.
 # Copyright (c) 2004-2005 The Regents of the University of California.
 #                         All rights reserved.
-# Copyright (c) 2014-2017 Intel, Inc. All rights reserved.
+# Copyright (c) 2014-2019 Intel, Inc.  All rights reserved.
 # Copyright (c) 2015-2018 Cisco Systems, Inc.  All rights reserved
 # $COPYRIGHT$
 #
@@ -132,3 +132,7 @@ up aborting your job.
   Peer host:              %s
   Peer process name:      %s
   Peer Open MPI version:  %s
+#
+[no-listeners]
+No sockets were able to be opened on the available protocols
+(IPv4 and/or IPv6). Please check your network and retry.
diff --git a/orte/mca/oob/tcp/oob_tcp_listener.c b/orte/mca/oob/tcp/oob_tcp_listener.c
index e97103c07f..d34d1a2b18 100644
--- a/orte/mca/oob/tcp/oob_tcp_listener.c
+++ b/orte/mca/oob/tcp/oob_tcp_listener.c
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
  *                         All rights reserved.
  * Copyright (c) 2009-2015 Cisco Systems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
  * Copyright (c) 2011      Oak Ridge National Labs.  All rights reserved.
- * Copyright (c) 2013-2017 Intel, Inc.  All rights reserved.
+ * Copyright (c) 2013-2019 Intel, Inc.  All rights reserved.
  * Copyright (c) 2015      Research Organization for Information Science
  *                         and Technology (RIST). All rights reserved.
  * $COPYRIGHT$
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ static void connection_event_handler(int sd, short flags, void* cbdata);
  */
 int orte_oob_tcp_start_listening(void)
 {
-    int rc;
+    int rc = ORTE_SUCCESS, rc2 = ORTE_SUCCESS;
     mca_oob_tcp_listener_t *listener;
 
     /* if we don't have any TCP interfaces, we shouldn't be here */
@@ -112,19 +112,19 @@ int orte_oob_tcp_start_listening(void)
     }
 
     /* create listen socket(s) for incoming connection attempts */
-    if (ORTE_SUCCESS != (rc = create_listen())) {
-        ORTE_ERROR_LOG(rc);
-        return rc;
-    }
+    rc = create_listen();
 
 #if OPAL_ENABLE_IPV6
     /* create listen socket(s) for incoming connection attempts */
-    if (ORTE_SUCCESS != (rc = create_listen6())) {
-        ORTE_ERROR_LOG(rc);
-        return rc;
-    }
+    rc2 = create_listen6();
 #endif
 
+    if (ORTE_SUCCESS != rc && ORTE_SUCCESS != rc2) {
+        /* we were unable to open any listening sockets */
+        opal_show_help("help-oob-tcp.txt", "no-listeners", true);
+        return ORTE_ERR_FATAL;
+    }
+
     /* if I am the HNP, start a listening thread so we can
      * harvest connection requests as rapidly as possible
      */