diff --git a/psycopg/cursor.h b/psycopg/cursor.h
index a0a3a822..68a087ac 100644
--- a/psycopg/cursor.h
+++ b/psycopg/cursor.h
@@ -46,7 +46,6 @@ typedef struct {
 
     int closed:1;            /* 1 if the cursor is closed */
     int notuples:1;          /* 1 if the command was not a SELECT query */
-    int needsfetch:1;        /* 1 if a call to pq_fetch is pending */
 
     long int rowcount;       /* number of rows affected by last execute */
     long int columns;        /* number of columns fetched from the db */
diff --git a/psycopg/cursor_int.c b/psycopg/cursor_int.c
index 32f3b72d..1069aaee 100644
--- a/psycopg/cursor_int.c
+++ b/psycopg/cursor_int.c
@@ -67,7 +67,6 @@ int
 curs_get_last_result(cursorObject *self) {
     PGresult *pgres;
 
-    IFCLEARPGRES(self->pgres);
     Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS;
     pthread_mutex_lock(&(self->conn->lock));
     /* read one result, there can be multiple if the client sent multiple
@@ -76,7 +75,8 @@ curs_get_last_result(cursorObject *self) {
         if (PQisBusy(self->conn->pgconn) == 1) {
             /* there is another result waiting, need to tell the client to
                wait more */
-            Dprintf("curs_get_last_result: gut result, but more are pending");
+            Dprintf("curs_get_last_result: got result, but more are pending");
+            IFCLEARPGRES(self->pgres);
             self->pgres = pgres;
             pthread_mutex_unlock(&(self->conn->lock));
             Py_BLOCK_THREADS;
@@ -90,8 +90,10 @@ curs_get_last_result(cursorObject *self) {
     self->conn->async_cursor = NULL;
     pthread_mutex_unlock(&(self->conn->lock));
     Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS;
-    self->needsfetch = 1;
-    return 0;
+    /* fetch the tuples (if there are any) and build the result. We don't care
+       if pq_fetch return 0 or 1, but if there was an error, we want to signal
+       it to the caller. */
+    return pq_fetch(self) == -1 ? -1 : 0;
 }
 
 /* curs_poll_send - handle cursor polling when flushing output */
diff --git a/psycopg/cursor_type.c b/psycopg/cursor_type.c
index 77b2393f..b916477d 100644
--- a/psycopg/cursor_type.c
+++ b/psycopg/cursor_type.c
@@ -645,8 +645,7 @@ _psyco_curs_prefetch(cursorObject *self)
 {
     int i = 0;
 
-    if (self->pgres == NULL || self->needsfetch) {
-        self->needsfetch = 0;
+    if (self->pgres == NULL) {
         Dprintf("_psyco_curs_prefetch: trying to fetch data");
         do {
             i = pq_fetch(self);
@@ -1067,10 +1066,6 @@ psyco_curs_scroll(cursorObject *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwargs)
        our own calculations to scroll; else we just delegate the scrolling
        to the MOVE SQL statement */
     if (self->name == NULL) {
-        /* the prefetch will be a noop for sync executions, because they
-           always set self->pgres  and never touch self->needsfetch, but for
-           async queries we need to parse the result and set self->rowcount */
-        if (_psyco_curs_prefetch(self) < 0) return NULL;
         if (strcmp(mode, "relative") == 0) {
             newpos = self->row + value;
         } else if (strcmp( mode, "absolute") == 0) {
diff --git a/tests/test_async.py b/tests/test_async.py
index 5333b0d1..bc23ab7b 100755
--- a/tests/test_async.py
+++ b/tests/test_async.py
@@ -338,6 +338,29 @@ class AsyncTests(unittest.TestCase):
         # fetching from the correct cursor works
         self.assertEquals(cur1.fetchone()[0], 1)
 
+    def test_error(self):
+        cur = self.conn.cursor()
+        cur.execute("insert into table1 values (%s)", (1, ))
+        self.wait(cur)
+        cur.execute("insert into table1 values (%s)", (1, ))
+        # this should fail
+        self.assertRaises(psycopg2.IntegrityError, self.wait, cur)
+        cur.execute("insert into table1 values (%s); "
+                    "insert into table1 values (%s)", (2, 2))
+        # this should fail as well
+        self.assertRaises(psycopg2.IntegrityError, self.wait, cur)
+        # but this should work
+        cur.execute("insert into table1 values (%s)", (2, ))
+        self.wait(cur)
+        # and the cursor should be usable afterwards
+        cur.execute("insert into table1 values (%s)", (3, ))
+        self.wait(cur)
+        cur.execute("select * from table1 order by id")
+        self.wait(cur)
+        self.assertEquals(cur.fetchall(), [(1, ), (2, ), (3, )])
+        cur.execute("delete from table1")
+        self.wait(cur)
+
 def test_suite():
     return unittest.TestLoader().loadTestsFromName(__name__)