diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index e6897c05f14d..c3632d656b71 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -17,6 +17,12 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ### Deprecated
 
+## [2.42.3] - 2023-12-06
+
+### Fixed
+
+- `MAPL_Abort()` was passing an uninitialized integer to `MPI_Abort()` resulting in spurious false successes when running ctest.    Maybe was happening frequently, but CI would be blind to this.
+
 ## [2.42.2] - 2023-12-05
 
 ### Fixed
diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index aacbceffa2aa..a5677597e57b 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ endif ()
 
 project (
   MAPL
-  VERSION 2.42.2
+  VERSION 2.42.3
   LANGUAGES Fortran CXX C)  # Note - CXX is required for ESMF
 
 # Set the possible values of build type for cmake-gui
diff --git a/shared/MAPL_ErrorHandling.F90 b/shared/MAPL_ErrorHandling.F90
index f2eef1f3447c..1c1707d89a43 100644
--- a/shared/MAPL_ErrorHandling.F90
+++ b/shared/MAPL_ErrorHandling.F90
@@ -240,9 +240,9 @@ logical function MAPL_VRFYt(A,text,iam,line,rc)
         !$omp end critical (MAPL_ErrorHandling10)
    end function MAPL_VRFYT
 
-   subroutine MAPL_abort
+   subroutine MAPL_abort()
       integer :: status
-      integer :: error_code
+      integer :: error_code = -1
       call MPI_Abort(MPI_COMM_WORLD,error_code,status)
   end subroutine MAPL_abort