diff --git a/cmd/utils/flags.go b/cmd/utils/flags.go
index fec800e81f..2fd438b625 100644
--- a/cmd/utils/flags.go
+++ b/cmd/utils/flags.go
@@ -2056,11 +2056,11 @@ func MakeChainDatabase(ctx *cli.Context, stack *node.Node, readonly bool) ethdb.
 	switch {
 	case ctx.IsSet(RemoteDBFlag.Name):
 		log.Info("Using remote db", "url", ctx.String(RemoteDBFlag.Name), "headers", len(ctx.StringSlice(HttpHeaderFlag.Name)))
-		var client *rpc.Client
-		client, err = DialRPCWithHeaders(ctx.String(RemoteDBFlag.Name), ctx.StringSlice(HttpHeaderFlag.Name))
-		if err == nil {
-			chainDb = remotedb.New(client)
+		client, err := DialRPCWithHeaders(ctx.String(RemoteDBFlag.Name), ctx.StringSlice(HttpHeaderFlag.Name))
+		if err != nil {
+			break
 		}
+		chainDb = remotedb.New(client)
 	case ctx.String(SyncModeFlag.Name) == "light":
 		chainDb, err = stack.OpenDatabase("lightchaindata", cache, handles, "", readonly)
 	default: