diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegion.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegion.java
index 7e575fcb1f7..e1a1af46659 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegion.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegion.java
@@ -2133,7 +2133,7 @@ public class HRegion implements HeapSize { // , Writable{
     WALEdit walEdit = new WALEdit(isInReplay);
     MultiVersionConsistencyControl.WriteEntry w = null;
     long txid = 0;
-    boolean walSyncSuccessful = false;
+    boolean doRollBackMemstore = false;
     boolean locked = false;
 
     /** Keep track of the locks we hold so we can release them in finally clause */
@@ -2294,6 +2294,7 @@ public class HRegion implements HeapSize { // , Writable{
             != OperationStatusCode.NOT_RUN) {
           continue;
         }
+        doRollBackMemstore = true; // If we have a failure, we need to clean what we wrote
         addedSize += applyFamilyMapToMemstore(familyMaps[i], w);
       }
 
@@ -2372,7 +2373,7 @@ public class HRegion implements HeapSize { // , Writable{
       if (hasWalAppends) {
         syncOrDefer(txid, durability);
       }
-      walSyncSuccessful = true;
+      doRollBackMemstore = false;
       // calling the post CP hook for batch mutation
       if (!isInReplay && coprocessorHost != null) {
         MiniBatchOperationInProgress<Mutation> miniBatchOp =
@@ -2414,7 +2415,7 @@ public class HRegion implements HeapSize { // , Writable{
     } finally {
 
       // if the wal sync was unsuccessful, remove keys from memstore
-      if (!walSyncSuccessful) {
+      if (doRollBackMemstore) {
         rollbackMemstore(batchOp, familyMaps, firstIndex, lastIndexExclusive);
       }
       if (w != null) mvcc.completeMemstoreInsert(w);