diff --git a/lib/spack/spack/database.py b/lib/spack/spack/database.py
index 7fe1b8fcef..3c7258728f 100644
--- a/lib/spack/spack/database.py
+++ b/lib/spack/spack/database.py
@@ -358,6 +358,14 @@ def __init__(self, root, db_dir=None, upstream_dbs=None,
 
         self.is_upstream = is_upstream
         self.last_seen_verifier = ''
+        # Failed write transactions (interrupted by exceptions) will alert
+        # _write. When that happens, we set this flag to indicate that
+        # future read/write transactions should re-read the DB. Normally it
+        # would make more sense to resolve this at the end of the transaction
+        # but typically a failed transaction will terminate the running
+        # instance of Spack and we don't want to incur an extra read in that
+        # case, so we defer the cleanup to when we begin the next transaction
+        self._state_is_inconsistent = False
 
         # initialize rest of state.
         self.db_lock_timeout = (
@@ -992,6 +1000,10 @@ def _write(self, type, value, traceback):
         """
         # Do not write if exceptions were raised
         if type is not None:
+            # A failure interrupted a transaction, so we should record that
+            # the Database is now in an inconsistent state: we should
+            # restore it in the next transaction
+            self._state_is_inconsistent = True
             return
 
         temp_file = self._index_path + (
@@ -1030,6 +1042,9 @@ def _read(self):
                 self.last_seen_verifier = current_verifier
                 # Read from file if a database exists
                 self._read_from_file(self._index_path)
+            elif self._state_is_inconsistent:
+                self._read_from_file(self._index_path)
+                self._state_is_inconsistent = False
             return
         elif self.is_upstream:
             raise UpstreamDatabaseLockingError(