diff --git a/content/xml/document/src/nsXMLContentSink.cpp b/content/xml/document/src/nsXMLContentSink.cpp
index 91c8cc382069..4168d410285b 100644
--- a/content/xml/document/src/nsXMLContentSink.cpp
+++ b/content/xml/document/src/nsXMLContentSink.cpp
@@ -1224,6 +1224,12 @@ nsXMLContentSink::HandleEndElement(const PRUnichar *aName)
   NS_ASSERTION(content, "failed to pop content");
 
   result = CloseElement(content, &appendContent);
+
+  // Make sure to pop the namespaces no matter whether CloseElement
+  // succeeded.
+  nsINameSpace* nameSpace = PopNameSpaces().get();
+  NS_IF_RELEASE(nameSpace);
+
   NS_ENSURE_SUCCESS(result, result);
 
   if (mDocElement == content) {
@@ -1236,9 +1242,6 @@ nsXMLContentSink::HandleEndElement(const PRUnichar *aName)
     parent->AppendChildTo(content, PR_FALSE, PR_FALSE);
   }
 
-  nsINameSpace* nameSpace = PopNameSpaces().get();
-  NS_IF_RELEASE(nameSpace);
-
   if (mNeedToBlockParser || (mParser && !mParser->IsParserEnabled())) {
     if (mParser) mParser->BlockParser();
     result = NS_ERROR_HTMLPARSER_BLOCK;