diff --git a/synapse/storage/database.py b/synapse/storage/database.py
index c3d0863429..9947dbce77 100644
--- a/synapse/storage/database.py
+++ b/synapse/storage/database.py
@@ -50,7 +50,6 @@ from synapse.storage.background_updates import BackgroundUpdater
 from synapse.storage.engines import BaseDatabaseEngine, PostgresEngine, Sqlite3Engine
 from synapse.storage.types import Connection, Cursor
 from synapse.types import Collection
-from synapse.util.stringutils import exception_to_unicode
 
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
@@ -424,20 +423,14 @@ class Database(object):
                     # This can happen if the database disappears mid
                     # transaction.
                     logger.warning(
-                        "[TXN OPERROR] {%s} %s %d/%d",
-                        name,
-                        exception_to_unicode(e),
-                        i,
-                        N,
+                        "[TXN OPERROR] {%s} %s %d/%d", name, e, i, N,
                     )
                     if i < N:
                         i += 1
                         try:
                             conn.rollback()
                         except self.engine.module.Error as e1:
-                            logger.warning(
-                                "[TXN EROLL] {%s} %s", name, exception_to_unicode(e1)
-                            )
+                            logger.warning("[TXN EROLL] {%s} %s", name, e1)
                         continue
                     raise
                 except self.engine.module.DatabaseError as e:
@@ -449,9 +442,7 @@ class Database(object):
                                 conn.rollback()
                             except self.engine.module.Error as e1:
                                 logger.warning(
-                                    "[TXN EROLL] {%s} %s",
-                                    name,
-                                    exception_to_unicode(e1),
+                                    "[TXN EROLL] {%s} %s", name, e1,
                                 )
                             continue
                     raise
diff --git a/synapse/util/stringutils.py b/synapse/util/stringutils.py
index 6899bcb788..2cfa5cf721 100644
--- a/synapse/util/stringutils.py
+++ b/synapse/util/stringutils.py
@@ -85,42 +85,6 @@ def to_ascii(s):
         return s
 
 
-def exception_to_unicode(e):
-    """Helper function to extract the text of an exception as a unicode string
-
-    Args:
-        e (Exception): exception to be stringified
-
-    Returns:
-        unicode
-    """
-    # urgh, this is a mess. The basic problem here is that psycopg2 constructs its
-    # exceptions with PyErr_SetString, with a (possibly non-ascii) argument. str() will
-    # then produce the raw byte sequence. Under Python 2, this will then cause another
-    # error if it gets mixed with a `unicode` object, as per
-    # https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/4252
-
-    # First of all, if we're under python3, everything is fine because it will sort this
-    # nonsense out for us.
-    if not PY2:
-        return str(e)
-
-    # otherwise let's have a stab at decoding the exception message. We'll circumvent
-    # Exception.__str__(), which would explode if someone raised Exception(u'non-ascii')
-    # and instead look at what is in the args member.
-
-    if len(e.args) == 0:
-        return ""
-    elif len(e.args) > 1:
-        return six.text_type(repr(e.args))
-
-    msg = e.args[0]
-    if isinstance(msg, bytes):
-        return msg.decode("utf-8", errors="replace")
-    else:
-        return msg
-
-
 def assert_valid_client_secret(client_secret):
     """Validate that a given string matches the client_secret regex defined by the spec"""
     if client_secret_regex.match(client_secret) is None: