diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index b905811c7c..67764c472a 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -56,6 +56,8 @@
 
 4. `fwrite()` could crash when writing very long strings such as 30 million characters, [#2974](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/2974), and could be unstable in memory constrained environments, [#2612](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/2612). Thanks to @logworthy and @zachokeeffe for reporting and Philippe Chataignon for fixing in PR [#3288](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/pull/3288).
 
+5. `fread()` could crash if `quote=""` (i.e. ignore quotes), the last line is too short, and `fill=TRUE`, [#3524](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/pull/3524). Thanks to Jiucang Hao for the report and reproducible example.
+
 #### NOTES
 
 1. `rbindlist`'s `use.names="check"` now emits its message for automatic column names (`"V[0-9]+"`) too, [#3484](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/pull/3484). See news item 5 of v1.12.2 below.
diff --git a/inst/tests/noquote.csv.gz b/inst/tests/noquote.csv.gz
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f65f56dbae
Binary files /dev/null and b/inst/tests/noquote.csv.gz differ
diff --git a/inst/tests/tests.Rraw b/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
index 8f8f3e71ec..12f354eb05 100644
--- a/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
+++ b/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
@@ -14072,6 +14072,16 @@ test(2027.1, DT[, list(1, ), by=a], error = 'Item 2 of the .() or list() passed
 test(2027.2, DT[, list(1,2,)],      error = 'Item 3 of the .() or list() passed to j is missing')
 test(2027.3, DT[, .(1,,3,), by=a],  error = 'Item 2 of the .() or list() passed to j is missing')
 
+# fread quote="" when last line too short and filled with fill=TRUE (provided via email), crash in v1.12.2 and before
+test(2028.1, fread(testDir("noquote.csv.gz"), fill=TRUE, quote="")[c(1,.N), c(1,2,9,10)],
+             data.table(H=c("D","T"), "Locate Reply"=c("BCS","Locate Reply"), V9=c("A",""), V10=c("4/23/2019 7:11:11 AM","")))
+test(2028.2, fread(testDir("noquote.csv.gz"), fill=TRUE, quote="", header=FALSE)[c(1,.N), c(1,2,3,8,9,10)],
+             data.table(V1=c("H","T"), V2="Locate Reply", V3=c("GORLTR","2093"), V8=INT(NA,NA), V9="", V10=""))
+txt = "A,B,C\n1,4,7\n2,5,8\n3,6\n"
+test(2029.1, fread(txt), data.table(A=1:2, B=4:5, C=7:8), warning="Discarded single-line footer: <<3,6>>")
+test(2029.2, fread(txt, quote=""), data.table(A=1:2, B=4:5, C=7:8), warning="Discarded single-line footer: <<3,6>>")
+test(2029.3, fread(txt, quote="", fill=TRUE), data.table(A=1:3, B=4:6, C=c(7:8,NA)))
+
 
 ###################################
 #  Add new tests above this line  #
diff --git a/src/fread.c b/src/fread.c
index bcbda32a59..970562393c 100644
--- a/src/fread.c
+++ b/src/fread.c
@@ -213,11 +213,11 @@ static char *typesAsString(int ncol) {
   static char str[101];
   int i=0;
   if (ncol<=100) {
-    for (; i<ncol; i++) str[i] = typeLetter[type[i]];
+    for (; i<ncol; i++) str[i] = typeLetter[abs(type[i])];  // abs for out-of-sample type bumps (negative)
   } else {
-    for (; i<80; i++) str[i] = typeLetter[type[i]];
+    for (; i<80; i++) str[i] = typeLetter[abs(type[i])];
     str[i++]='.'; str[i++]='.'; str[i++]='.';
-    for (int j=ncol-10; j<ncol; j++) str[i++] = typeLetter[type[j]];
+    for (int j=ncol-10; j<ncol; j++) str[i++] = typeLetter[abs(type[j])];
   }
   str[i] = '\0';
   return str;
@@ -495,7 +495,7 @@ static void Field(FieldParseContext *ctx)
   if ((*ch==' ' && stripWhite) || (*ch=='\0' && ch<eof))
     while(*++ch==' ' || (*ch=='\0' && ch<eof));  // if sep==' ' the space would have been skipped already and we wouldn't be on space now.
   const char *fieldStart=ch;
-  if (*ch!=quote || quoteRule==3) {
+  if (*ch!=quote || quoteRule==3 || quote=='\0') {
     // Most common case. Unambiguously not quoted. Simply search for sep|eol. If field contains sep|eol then it should have been quoted and we do not try to heal that.
     while(!end_of_field(ch)) ch++;  // sep, \r, \n or eof will end
     *(ctx->ch) = ch;
@@ -562,7 +562,7 @@ static void Field(FieldParseContext *ctx)
   }
   target->len = (int32_t)(ch - fieldStart);
   target->off = (int32_t)(fieldStart - ctx->anchor);
-  if (*ch==quote) {
+  if (*ch==quote) {   // quote=='\0' (user set quote="") would have returned earlier above in the same branch as quoteRule 3
     ch++;
     skip_white(&ch);
     *(ctx->ch) = ch;
@@ -798,7 +798,7 @@ static void parse_double_extended(FieldParseContext *ctx)
   double *target = (double*) ctx->targets[sizeof(double)];
   bool neg, quoted;
   init();
-  ch += (quoted = (*ch=='"'));
+  ch += (quoted = (*ch==quote && quote));
   ch += (neg = (*ch=='-')) + (*ch=='+');
 
   if (ch[0]=='n' && ch[1]=='a' && ch[2]=='n' && (ch += 3)) goto return_nan;
@@ -843,7 +843,7 @@ static void parse_double_extended(FieldParseContext *ctx)
   return_na:
     *target = NA_FLOAT64;
   ok:
-    if (quoted && *ch!='"') {
+    if (quoted && *ch!=quote) {
       *target = NA_FLOAT64;
     } else {
       *(ctx->ch) = ch + quoted;
@@ -1048,7 +1048,7 @@ static int detect_types( const char **pch, int8_t type[], int ncol, bool *bumped
         // thread at headPos which has full lineage to sof may bump the quoteRule.
         break; // caller will detect this line hasn't finished properly
       }
-      if (*ch==quote) {
+      if (*ch==quote && quote) {  // && quote to exclude quote='\0' (user passed quote="")
         ch++;
         fun[tmpType[field]](&fctx);
         if (*ch==quote) {
@@ -1169,6 +1169,8 @@ int freadMain(freadMainArgs _args) {
   if (dec=='\0') STOP("dec='' not allowed. Should be '.' or ','");
   if (args.sep == dec) STOP("sep == dec ('%c') is not allowed", dec);
   if (quote == dec) STOP("quote == dec ('%c') is not allowed", dec);
+  // since quote=='\0' when user passed quote="", the logic in this file uses '*ch==quote && quote' otherwise
+  //   the ending \0 at eof could be treated as a quote (test xxx)
 
   // File parsing context: pointer to the start of file, and to the end of
   // the file. The `sof` pointer may be shifted in order to skip over
@@ -1459,7 +1461,7 @@ int freadMain(freadMainArgs _args) {
     int topSkip=0;            // how many rows to auto-skip
     const char *topStart=NULL;
 
-    for (quoteRule=0; quoteRule<4; quoteRule++) {
+    for (quoteRule=quote?0:3; quoteRule<4; quoteRule++) {
       // quote rule in order of preference.
       // when top is tied the first wins, so do all seps for the first quoteRule, then all seps for the second quoteRule, etc
       for (int s=0; s<nseps; s++) {
@@ -1469,7 +1471,7 @@ int freadMain(freadMainArgs _args) {
         // if (verbose) DTPRINT("  Trying sep='%c' with quoteRule %d ...\n", sep, quoteRule);
 
         if (fill) {
-          if (quoteRule>1) continue;  // turn off self-healing quote rules when filling
+          if (quoteRule>1 && quote) continue;  // turn off self-healing quote rule when filling
           int firstRowNcol = countfields(&ch);
           int thisncol=0, maxncol=firstRowNcol, thisRow=0;
           while (ch<eof && ++thisRow<jumpLines) {   // TODO: rename 'jumpLines' to 'jumpRows'
@@ -1562,7 +1564,7 @@ int freadMain(freadMainArgs _args) {
     }
 
     quoteRule = topQuoteRule;
-    if (quoteRule>1) {
+    if (quoteRule>1 && quote) {
       DTWARN("Found and resolved improper quoting in first %d rows. If the fields are not quoted (e.g. field separator does not appear within any field), try quote=\"\" to avoid this warning.", jumpLines);
       // TODO: include line number and text in warning. Could loop again with the standard quote rule to find the line that fails.
     }
@@ -2172,10 +2174,10 @@ int freadMain(freadMainArgs _args) {
               tch = end_NA_string(tch);
               skip_white(&tch);
               if (!end_of_field(tch)) tch = afterSpace; // else it is the field_end, we're on closing sep|eol and we'll let processor write appropriate NA as if field was empty
-              if (*tch==quote) { quoted=true; tch++; }
+              if (*tch==quote && quote) { quoted=true; tch++; }
             } // else Field() handles NA inside it unlike other processors e.g. ,, is interpretted as "" or NA depending on option read inside Field()
             fun[abs(thisType)](&fctx);
-            if (quoted) {
+            if (quoted) {   // quoted was only set to true with '&& quote' above (=> quote!='\0' now)
               if (*tch==quote) tch++;
               else goto typebump;
             }
@@ -2362,6 +2364,7 @@ int freadMain(freadMainArgs _args) {
     for (int i=0; i<ncol; i++) typeCounts[ abs(type[i]) ]++;
 
     if (nTypeBump) {
+      if (verbose) DTPRINT("  %d out-of-sample type bumps: %s\n", nTypeBump, typesAsString(ncol));
       rowSize1 = rowSize4 = rowSize8 = 0;
       nStringCols = 0;
       nNonStringCols = 0;