diff --git a/src/detect.c b/src/detect.c
index 4b510c9020..0143482fe9 100644
--- a/src/detect.c
+++ b/src/detect.c
@@ -1335,14 +1335,19 @@ static int SignatureIsDEOnly(DetectEngineCtx *de_ctx, Signature *s) {
     }
 
     SigMatch *sm = s->match;
-    if (sm == NULL)
-        goto deonly;
-
+    /* check for conflicting keywords */
     for ( ;sm != NULL; sm = sm->next) {
         if ( !(sigmatch_table[sm->type].flags & SIGMATCH_DEONLY_COMPAT))
             return 0;
     }
 
+    /* need at least one decode event keyword to be condered decode event. */
+    for ( ;sm != NULL; sm = sm->next) {
+        if (sm->type == DETECT_DECODE_EVENT)
+            goto deonly;
+    }
+    return 0;
+
 deonly:
     if (!(de_ctx->flags & DE_QUIET)) {
         SCLogDebug("DE-ONLY (%" PRIu32 "): source %s, dest %s", s->id,