diff --git a/drivers/gpu/nvgpu/common/mm/vm.c b/drivers/gpu/nvgpu/common/mm/vm.c
index 7f0b3d104..4e221500a 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/nvgpu/common/mm/vm.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/nvgpu/common/mm/vm.c
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright (c) 2017-2018, NVIDIA CORPORATION.  All rights reserved.
+ * Copyright (c) 2017-2019, NVIDIA CORPORATION.  All rights reserved.
  *
  * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
  * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
@@ -873,12 +873,13 @@ struct nvgpu_mapped_buf *nvgpu_vm_map(struct vm_gk20a *vm,
 						      map_addr,
 						      flags,
 						      map_key_kind);
-		nvgpu_mutex_release(&vm->update_gmmu_lock);
 
 		if (mapped_buffer) {
 			nvgpu_ref_get(&mapped_buffer->ref);
+			nvgpu_mutex_release(&vm->update_gmmu_lock);
 			return mapped_buffer;
 		}
+		nvgpu_mutex_release(&vm->update_gmmu_lock);
 	}
 
 	/*