diff --git a/jvm/src/test/scala/scala/xml/parsing/ConstructingParserTest.scala b/jvm/src/test/scala/scala/xml/parsing/ConstructingParserTest.scala
index 1ee397e3..f796070d 100644
--- a/jvm/src/test/scala/scala/xml/parsing/ConstructingParserTest.scala
+++ b/jvm/src/test/scala/scala/xml/parsing/ConstructingParserTest.scala
@@ -91,4 +91,10 @@ class ConstructingParserTest {
     val parser: ConstructingParser = ConstructingParser.fromSource(Source.fromString(xml), preserveWS = true)
     parser.document().docElem  // shouldn't crash
   }
+
+  @Test(expected = classOf[scala.xml.parsing.FatalError])
+  def issue656(): Unit = {
+    // mismatched quotes should not cause an infinite loop
+    XhtmlParser(Source.fromString("""<html><body myAttribute='value"/></html>"""))
+  }
 }
diff --git a/shared/src/main/scala/scala/xml/parsing/MarkupParserCommon.scala b/shared/src/main/scala/scala/xml/parsing/MarkupParserCommon.scala
index c30cc0e4..ff43221d 100644
--- a/shared/src/main/scala/scala/xml/parsing/MarkupParserCommon.scala
+++ b/shared/src/main/scala/scala/xml/parsing/MarkupParserCommon.scala
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ private[scala] trait MarkupParserCommon extends TokenTests {
     val buf: StringBuilder = new StringBuilder
     while (ch != endCh && !eof) {
       // well-formedness constraint
-      if (ch == '<') reportSyntaxError("'<' not allowed in attrib value")
+      if (ch == '<') truncatedError("'<' not allowed in attrib value")
       else if (ch == SU) truncatedError("")
       else buf.append(ch_returning_nextch)
     }
