diff --git a/modules/openstack_project/files/puppetmaster/expand-groups.sh b/modules/openstack_project/files/puppetmaster/expand-groups.sh
index 678ce0d45c..626568728f 100644
--- a/modules/openstack_project/files/puppetmaster/expand-groups.sh
+++ b/modules/openstack_project/files/puppetmaster/expand-groups.sh
@@ -24,12 +24,24 @@ echo "# This file is autogenerated" > $outfile
 unset OS_CLOUD
 unset OS_REGION_NAME
 
+# Because we are generating "generated-groups", we need to work on an
+# inventory without out it ... otherwise entries that have actually
+# disappeared (according to /etc/ansible/hosts/openstack's live list)
+# will keep coming back as "ansible --list" finds them in the
+# generated-groups file.  Later versions of ansible have a
+# "inventory_ignore_patterns" that might help, we just copy & remove
+# in a separate inventory
+inv=${outdir}/hosts
+mkdir ${inv}
+cp /etc/ansible/hosts/* ${inv}
+rm -f ${inv}/generated-groups*
+
 IFS=$'\n'
 for line in $(</etc/ansible/groups.txt); do
     name=$(echo $line | cut -f1 -d' ')
     pattern=$(echo $line | cut -f2 -d' ')
     echo "[${name}]" >> $outfile
-    ansible "${pattern}" --list-hosts | egrep -v '^ +hosts \([0-9]+\):' >> $outfile
+    ansible -i ${inv} "${pattern}" --list-hosts | egrep -v '^ +hosts \([0-9]+\):' >> $outfile
 done
 
 cp $outfile /etc/ansible/hosts/generated-groups