diff --git a/tests/runtests.py b/tests/runtests.py
index ab3ca6d5c6..c484b9ecc5 100755
--- a/tests/runtests.py
+++ b/tests/runtests.py
@@ -39,9 +39,13 @@ class DjangoDoctestRunner(doctest.DocTestRunner):
             "Code: %r\nLine: %s\nExpected: %r\nGot: %r" % (example.source.strip(), example.lineno, example.want, got))
 
     def report_unexpected_exception(self, out, test, example, exc_info):
+        from django.db import connection
         tb = ''.join(traceback.format_exception(*exc_info)[1:])
         log_error(test.name, "API test raised an exception",
             "Code: %r\nLine: %s\nException: %s" % (example.source.strip(), example.lineno, tb))
+        # Rollback, in case of database errors. Otherwise they'd have
+        # side effects on other tests.
+        connection.rollback()
 
 normalize_long_ints = lambda s: re.sub(r'(?<![\w])(\d+)L(?![\w])', '\\1', s)
 
@@ -144,12 +148,7 @@ class TestRunner:
             # has side effects on doctest TestRunner class.
             runner = DjangoDoctestRunner(verbosity_level=verbosity_level, verbose=False)
             self.output(1, "%s model: Running tests" % model_name)
-            try:
-                runner.run(dtest, clear_globs=True, out=sys.stdout.write)
-            finally:
-                # Rollback, in case of database errors. Otherwise they'd have
-                # side effects on other tests.
-                connection.rollback()
+            runner.run(dtest, clear_globs=True, out=sys.stdout.write)
 
         if not self.which_tests:
             # Run the non-model tests in the other tests dir