diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 565683e8..e14b74fc 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 Package: future
 ===============
 
-Version: 1.2.0-9000 [2016-12-30]
+Version: 1.2.0-9000 [2017-01-05]
 o Added support for controlling whether a future is resolved eagerly
   or lazily when creating the future, e.g. future(..., lazy = TRUE)
   futureAssign(..., lazy = TRUE), and x %<-% { ... } %lazy% TRUE.
@@ -17,7 +17,9 @@ o PRIVACY: Lookup of public / external IP number is now querying
   doesn't log usage.  Note that the external IP number is only
   queried when using plan(remote, workers) and explicitly using
   revtunnel = FALSE (the default is revtunnel = TRUE).
-
+o BUG FIX: availableCores(methods = "_R_CHECK_LIMIT_CORES_") would
+  give an error if not running R CMD check.
+  
 
 Version: 1.2.0 [2016-11-12]
 o Added makeClusterPSOCK() - a version of parallel::makePSOCKcluster()
diff --git a/R/availableCores.R b/R/availableCores.R
index e942742d..6db7be38 100644
--- a/R/availableCores.R
+++ b/R/availableCores.R
@@ -8,15 +8,19 @@
 #' For instance, on systems where multicore processing is not supported
 #' (i.e. Windows), using \code{constrains="multicore"} will force a
 #' single core to be reported.
+#'
 #' @param methods A character vector specifying how to infer the number
 #' of available cores.
+#'
 #' @param na.rm If TRUE, only non-missing settings are considered/returned.
+#'
 #' @param default The default number of cores to return if no non-missing
 #' settings are available.
+#'
 #' @param which A character specifying which settings to return.
 #' If \code{"min"}, the minimum value is returned.
 #' If \code{"max"}, the maximum value is returned (be careful!)
-#' If \code{"all"}, all values are returned.
+#' If \code{"all"}, all values are returned.#'
 #'
 #' @return Return a positive (>=1) integer.
 #' If \code{which="all"}, then more than one value may be returned.
@@ -117,7 +121,7 @@ availableCores <- function(constraints=NULL, methods=getOption("future.available
       ## misleading to the reader.
       chk <- tolower(Sys.getenv("_R_CHECK_LIMIT_CORES_", ""))
       chk <- (nzchar(chk) && (chk != "false"))
-      if (chk) n <- 3L ## = 2+1
+      n <- if (chk) 3L else NA_integer_ ## = 2+1
     } else if (method == "system") {
       ## Number of cores available according to parallel::detectCores()
       n <- detectCores()