diff --git a/sleekxmpp/test/sleektest.py b/sleekxmpp/test/sleektest.py
index dd3df29..364e593 100644
--- a/sleekxmpp/test/sleektest.py
+++ b/sleekxmpp/test/sleektest.py
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 """
 
 import unittest
+from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError
 try:
     import Queue as queue
 except:
@@ -62,8 +63,9 @@ class SleekTest(unittest.TestCase):
         try:
             xml = ET.fromstring(xml_string)
             return xml
-        except SyntaxError as e:
-            if 'unbound' in e.msg:
+        except (SyntaxError, ExpatError) as e:
+            msg = e.msg if hasattr(e, 'msg') else e.message
+            if 'unbound' in msg:
                 known_prefixes = {
                         'stream': 'http://etherx.jabber.org/streams'}
 
diff --git a/sleekxmpp/xmlstream/xmlstream.py b/sleekxmpp/xmlstream/xmlstream.py
index f626eb0..4c4b1eb 100644
--- a/sleekxmpp/xmlstream/xmlstream.py
+++ b/sleekxmpp/xmlstream/xmlstream.py
@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@ try:
 except ImportError:
     import Queue as queue
 
+from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError
+
 import sleekxmpp
 from sleekxmpp.thirdparty.statemachine import StateMachine
 from sleekxmpp.xmlstream import Scheduler, tostring
@@ -1241,7 +1243,7 @@ class XMLStream(object):
             except SystemExit:
                 log.debug("SystemExit in _process")
                 shutdown = True
-            except SyntaxError as e:
+            except (SyntaxError, ExpatError) as e:
                 log.error("Error reading from XML stream.")
                 self.exception(e)
             except Socket.error as serr: