diff --git a/.github/scripts/test_strip_shell_comments.sh b/.github/scripts/test_strip_shell_comments.sh
index ca6b1bd020..8341d3b1d2 100755
--- a/.github/scripts/test_strip_shell_comments.sh
+++ b/.github/scripts/test_strip_shell_comments.sh
@@ -72,6 +72,14 @@ else
 	ok "plain and indented comment lines are dropped"
 fi
 
+# #2386: blank lines stay, so the shipped script keeps its paragraph breaks.
+printf '#!/bin/sh\necho one\n\necho two\n' > "$WORK/blank.sh"
+if [ "$(strip "$WORK/blank.sh" | wc -l)" = 4 ]; then
+	ok "blank lines survive"
+else
+	bad "a blank line was dropped"
+fi
+
 live=$(grep -c LIVE "$WORK/fixture.out")
 if [ "$live" = 6 ]; then
 	ok "heredoc bodies, multi-line strings and continuations are left alone (6/6)"
diff --git a/general/scripts/strip-shell-comments.awk b/general/scripts/strip-shell-comments.awk
index 0f6c757548..f544bfaa45 100644
--- a/general/scripts/strip-shell-comments.awk
+++ b/general/scripts/strip-shell-comments.awk
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-# Drop whole-line comments and blank lines from a POSIX shell script.
+# Drop whole-line comments from a POSIX shell script.
+# Keep blank lines to preserve readability. See #2386.
 #
 # Comments are worth writing and worth keeping in the tree, but every byte of
 # them is also flashed to an 8MB camera. sysupgrade alone reached 52KB, 57% of
@@ -104,7 +105,7 @@ BEGIN { nd = 0; sq = 0; dq = 0; cont = 0; prev_cont = 0 }
 		next
 	}
 
-	if (/^[ \t]*$/) next
+	if (/^[ \t]*$/) { print; next }
 
 	code = code_of($0)
 	if (code ~ /^[ \t]*$/) next          # the line was only a comment