diff --git a/docs/CHANGELOG.md b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
index a55b72280..f2343159a 100644
--- a/docs/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ The following tip changes can be tested by building VictoriaMetrics components f
 * FEATURE: [vmagent](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html): reduce memory usage when sending stale markers for targets, which expose big number of metrics. See [this](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3668) and [this](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3675) issues.
 * FEATURE: add `-internStringMaxLen` command-line flag, which can be used for fine-tuning RAM vs CPU usage in certain workloads. For example, if the stored time series contain long labels, then it may be useful reducing the `-internStringMaxLen` in order to reduce memory usage at the cost of increased CPU usage. See [this issue](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3692).
 
+* BUGFIX: release `inMerge` parts lock properly at `finalDedupWatcher`. It prevented partition merges until storage restart if storage didn't have enough disk space for final deduplication and down-sampling.
 * BUGFIX: [VictoriaMetrics cluster](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html): propagate all the timeout-related errors from `vmstorage` to `vmselect` when `vmstorage`. Previously some timeout errors weren't returned from `vmselect` to `vmstorage`. Instead, `vmstorage` could log the error and close the connection to `vmselect`, so `vmselect` was logging cryptic errors such as `cannot execute funcName="..." on vmstorage "...": EOF`.
 * BUGFIX: [vmui](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#vmui): add support for time zone selection for older versions of browsers. See [this pull request](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/pull/3680).
 * BUGFIX: [vmagent](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html): update API version for [ec2_sd_configs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#ec2_sd_configs) to fix [the issue](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3700) with missing `__meta_ec2_availability_zone_id` attribute.
diff --git a/lib/storage/partition.go b/lib/storage/partition.go
index 1e0a7532b..adb03daa8 100644
--- a/lib/storage/partition.go
+++ b/lib/storage/partition.go
@@ -952,6 +952,7 @@ func (pt *partition) ForceMergeAllParts() error {
 		if newPartSize > maxOutBytes {
 			freeSpaceNeededBytes := newPartSize - maxOutBytes
 			forceMergeLogger.Warnf("cannot initiate force merge for the partition %s; additional space needed: %d bytes", pt.name, freeSpaceNeededBytes)
+			pt.releasePartsToMerge(pws)
 			return nil
 		}
 
@@ -963,6 +964,7 @@ func (pt *partition) ForceMergeAllParts() error {
 		}
 		pws = pt.getAllPartsForMerge()
 		if len(pws) <= 1 {
+			pt.releasePartsToMerge(pws)
 			return nil
 		}
 	}