diff --git a/Lib/test/test_tarfile.py b/Lib/test/test_tarfile.py
index bd80258a69e..584b7b313af 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_tarfile.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_tarfile.py
@@ -10,7 +10,8 @@
 # Check for our compression modules.
 try:
     import gzip
-except ImportError:
+    gzip.GzipFile
+except (ImportError, AttributeError):
     gzip = None
 try:
     import bz2