diff --git a/web3_proxy/src/app/mod.rs b/web3_proxy/src/app/mod.rs
index 2027680d..9b94d846 100644
--- a/web3_proxy/src/app/mod.rs
+++ b/web3_proxy/src/app/mod.rs
@@ -1363,6 +1363,7 @@ impl Web3ProxyApp {
             "eth_getTransactionReceipt" | "eth_getTransactionByHash" => {
                 // try to get the transaction without specifying a min_block_height
                 // TODO: timeout
+                // TODO: change this to send serially until we get a success
 
                 let result = self
                     .balanced_rpcs
@@ -1699,20 +1700,26 @@ impl Web3ProxyApp {
 
                                 // this is spawned so that if the client disconnects, the app keeps polling the future with a lock inside the moka cache
                                 // TODO: is this expect actually safe!? could there be a background process that still has the arc?
-                                let mut x = match tokio::spawn(f).await? {
+                                let x = match tokio::spawn(f).await? {
                                     Ok(response_data) => Ok(jsonrpc::ParsedResponse::from_response_data(response_data, Default::default()).into()),
                                     Err(err) => {
                                         self.jsonrpc_response_failed_cache_keys.insert(cache_key, ()).await;
 
                                         if let Web3ProxyError::StreamResponse(x) = err.as_ref() {
-                                            let x = x.lock().take().expect("stream processing should only happen once");
+                                            if let Some(x) = x.lock().take() {
+                                                Ok(jsonrpc::SingleResponse::Stream(x))
+                                            } else {
+                                                let err: Web3ProxyError = anyhow::anyhow!("stream was already taken. please report this in Discord").into();
 
-                                            Ok(jsonrpc::SingleResponse::Stream(x))
+                                                Err(Arc::new(err))
+                                            }
                                         } else {
                                             Err(err)
                                         }
                                     },
-                                }?;
+                                };
+
+                                let mut x = x?;
 
                                 // clear the id. theres no point including it in our cached response
                                 x.set_id(Default::default());