diff --git a/scrapy/crawler.py b/scrapy/crawler.py
index ef99c243a..443a9aa2f 100644
--- a/scrapy/crawler.py
+++ b/scrapy/crawler.py
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ import signal
 import logging
 import warnings
 
+import sys
 from twisted.internet import reactor, defer
 from zope.interface.verify import verifyClass, DoesNotImplement
 
@@ -73,11 +74,21 @@ class Crawler(object):
             yield self.engine.open_spider(self.spider, start_requests)
             yield defer.maybeDeferred(self.engine.start)
         except Exception:
-            exc = defer.fail()
+            # In Python 2 reraising an exception after yield discards
+            # the original traceback (see http://bugs.python.org/issue7563),
+            # so sys.exc_info() workaround is used.
+            # This workaround also works in Python 3, but it is not needed,
+            # and it is slower, so in Python 3 we use native `raise`.
+            if six.PY2:
+                exc_info = sys.exc_info()
+
             self.crawling = False
             if self.engine is not None:
                 yield self.engine.close()
-            yield exc
+
+            if six.PY2:
+                six.reraise(*exc_info)
+            raise
 
     def _create_spider(self, *args, **kwargs):
         return self.spidercls.from_crawler(self, *args, **kwargs)
diff --git a/tests/test_commands.py b/tests/test_commands.py
index 1a30368ba..2e47160d7 100644
--- a/tests/test_commands.py
+++ b/tests/test_commands.py
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ from time import sleep
 from os.path import exists, join, abspath
 from shutil import rmtree, copytree
 from tempfile import mkdtemp
-import six
+from contextlib import contextmanager
 
 from twisted.trial import unittest
 from twisted.internet import defer
@@ -154,12 +154,24 @@ class MiscCommandsTest(CommandTest):
 
 class RunSpiderCommandTest(CommandTest):
 
-    def test_runspider(self):
+    @contextmanager
+    def _create_file(self, content, name):
         tmpdir = self.mktemp()
         os.mkdir(tmpdir)
-        fname = abspath(join(tmpdir, 'myspider.py'))
+        fname = abspath(join(tmpdir, name))
         with open(fname, 'w') as f:
-            f.write("""
+            f.write(content)
+        try:
+            yield fname
+        finally:
+            rmtree(tmpdir)
+
+    def runspider(self, code, name='myspider.py'):
+        with self._create_file(code, name) as fname:
+            return self.proc('runspider', fname)
+
+    def test_runspider(self):
+        spider = """
 import scrapy
 
 class MySpider(scrapy.Spider):
@@ -168,23 +180,17 @@ class MySpider(scrapy.Spider):
     def start_requests(self):
         self.logger.debug("It Works!")
         return []
-""")
-        p = self.proc('runspider', fname)
+"""
+        p = self.runspider(spider)
         log = to_native_str(p.stderr.read())
+
         self.assertIn("DEBUG: It Works!", log)
         self.assertIn("INFO: Spider opened", log)
         self.assertIn("INFO: Closing spider (finished)", log)
         self.assertIn("INFO: Spider closed (finished)", log)
 
     def test_runspider_no_spider_found(self):
-        tmpdir = self.mktemp()
-        os.mkdir(tmpdir)
-        fname = abspath(join(tmpdir, 'myspider.py'))
-        with open(fname, 'w') as f:
-            f.write("""
-from scrapy.spiders import Spider
-""")
-        p = self.proc('runspider', fname)
+        p = self.runspider("from scrapy.spiders import Spider\n")
         log = to_native_str(p.stderr.read())
         self.assertIn("No spider found in file", log)
 
@@ -194,14 +200,23 @@ from scrapy.spiders import Spider
         self.assertIn("File not found: some_non_existent_file", log)
 
     def test_runspider_unable_to_load(self):
-        tmpdir = self.mktemp()
-        os.mkdir(tmpdir)
-        fname = abspath(join(tmpdir, 'myspider.txt'))
-        with open(fname, 'w') as f:
-            f.write("")
-        p = self.proc('runspider', fname)
+        p = self.runspider('', 'myspider.txt')
         log = to_native_str(p.stderr.read())
-        self.assertIn("Unable to load", log)
+        self.assertIn('Unable to load', log)
+
+    def test_start_requests_errors(self):
+        p = self.runspider("""
+import scrapy
+
+class BadSpider(scrapy.Spider):
+    name = "bad"
+    def start_requests(self):
+        raise Exception("oops!")
+        """, name="badspider.py")
+        log = to_native_str(p.stderr.read())
+        print(log)
+        self.assertIn("start_requests", log)
+        self.assertIn("badspider.py", log)
 
 
 class ParseCommandTest(ProcessTest, SiteTest, CommandTest):