diff --git a/src/github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/federationsender/consumers/roomserver.go b/src/github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/federationsender/consumers/roomserver.go
index d172323ca..a396aaf6d 100644
--- a/src/github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/federationsender/consumers/roomserver.go
+++ b/src/github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/federationsender/consumers/roomserver.go
@@ -134,6 +134,14 @@ func (s *OutputRoomEventConsumer) processMessage(ore api.OutputNewRoomEvent) err
 		return err
 	}
 
+	if oldJoinedHosts == nil {
+		// This means that there is nothing to update as this is a duplicate
+		// message.
+		// This can happen if dendrite crashed between reading the message and
+		// persisting the stream position.
+		return nil
+	}
+
 	if ore.SendAsServer == api.DoNotSendToOtherServers {
 		// Ignore event that we don't need to send anywhere.
 		return nil
@@ -146,13 +154,9 @@ func (s *OutputRoomEventConsumer) processMessage(ore api.OutputNewRoomEvent) err
 	}
 
 	// Send the event.
-	if err = s.queues.SendEvent(
+	return s.queues.SendEvent(
 		&ore.Event, gomatrixserverlib.ServerName(ore.SendAsServer), joinedHostsAtEvent,
-	); err != nil {
-		return err
-	}
-
-	return nil
+	)
 }
 
 // joinedHostsAtEvent works out a list of matrix servers that were joined to
diff --git a/src/github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/federationsender/storage/storage.go b/src/github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/federationsender/storage/storage.go
index fc7f830e4..ab97dc449 100644
--- a/src/github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/federationsender/storage/storage.go
+++ b/src/github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/federationsender/storage/storage.go
@@ -62,7 +62,10 @@ func (d *Database) prepare() error {
 }
 
 // UpdateRoom updates the joined hosts for a room and returns what the joined
-// hosts were before the update.
+// hosts were before the update, or nil if this was a duplicate message.
+// This is called when we receive a message from kafka, so we pass in
+// oldEventID and newEventID to check that we haven't missed any messages or
+// this isn't a duplicate message.
 func (d *Database) UpdateRoom(
 	ctx context.Context,
 	roomID, oldEventID, newEventID string,
@@ -70,22 +73,34 @@ func (d *Database) UpdateRoom(
 	removeHosts []string,
 ) (joinedHosts []types.JoinedHost, err error) {
 	err = common.WithTransaction(d.db, func(txn *sql.Tx) error {
-		if err = d.insertRoom(ctx, txn, roomID); err != nil {
+		err = d.insertRoom(ctx, txn, roomID)
+		if err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
+
 		lastSentEventID, err := d.selectRoomForUpdate(ctx, txn, roomID)
 		if err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
+
+		if lastSentEventID == newEventID {
+			// We've handled this message before, so let's just ignore it.
+			// We can only get a duplicate for the last message we processed,
+			// so its enough just to compare the newEventID with lastSentEventID
+			return nil
+		}
+
 		if lastSentEventID != oldEventID {
 			return types.EventIDMismatchError{
 				DatabaseID: lastSentEventID, RoomServerID: oldEventID,
 			}
 		}
+
 		joinedHosts, err = d.selectJoinedHosts(ctx, txn, roomID)
 		if err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
+
 		for _, add := range addHosts {
 			err = d.insertJoinedHosts(ctx, txn, roomID, add.MemberEventID, add.ServerName)
 			if err != nil {