diff --git a/container.go b/container.go
index 3a277fb1f9481558e2a8c38959ff142a3d3edb86..7e15761c37474ec64248020eea7bef6b08df37d9 100644
--- a/container.go
+++ b/container.go
@@ -789,6 +789,19 @@ func (container *Container) monitor(callback execdriver.StartCallback) error {
 		utils.Errorf("Error running container: %s", err)
 	}
 
+	container.State.SetStopped(exitCode)
+
+	// FIXME: there is a race condition here which causes this to fail during the unit tests.
+	// If another goroutine was waiting for Wait() to return before removing the container's root
+	// from the filesystem... At this point it may already have done so.
+	// This is because State.setStopped() has already been called, and has caused Wait()
+	// to return.
+	// FIXME: why are we serializing running state to disk in the first place?
+	//log.Printf("%s: Failed to dump configuration to the disk: %s", container.ID, err)
+	if err := container.ToDisk(); err != nil {
+		utils.Errorf("Error dumping container state to disk: %s\n", err)
+	}
+
 	// Cleanup
 	container.cleanup()
 
@@ -797,23 +810,12 @@ func (container *Container) monitor(callback execdriver.StartCallback) error {
 		container.stdin, container.stdinPipe = io.Pipe()
 	}
 
-	container.State.SetStopped(exitCode)
-
 	if container.runtime != nil && container.runtime.srv != nil {
 		container.runtime.srv.LogEvent("die", container.ID, container.runtime.repositories.ImageName(container.Image))
 	}
 
 	close(container.waitLock)
 
-	// FIXME: there is a race condition here which causes this to fail during the unit tests.
-	// If another goroutine was waiting for Wait() to return before removing the container's root
-	// from the filesystem... At this point it may already have done so.
-	// This is because State.setStopped() has already been called, and has caused Wait()
-	// to return.
-	// FIXME: why are we serializing running state to disk in the first place?
-	//log.Printf("%s: Failed to dump configuration to the disk: %s", container.ID, err)
-	container.ToDisk()
-
 	return err
 }