diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 33e533b6..61495a87 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 .DS_Store
 # No PyCharm config files
 .idea/
-venv/
\ No newline at end of file
+venv/
+__pycache__
diff --git a/meraki/aio/rest_session.py b/meraki/aio/rest_session.py
index fc31a9e0..1f1fc73c 100644
--- a/meraki/aio/rest_session.py
+++ b/meraki/aio/rest_session.py
@@ -89,6 +89,7 @@ async def request(self, metadata, method, url, **kwargs):
             return None
         else:
             response = None
+            message = None
             for _ in range(retries):
                 # Make the HTTP request to the API endpoint
                 try:
@@ -154,7 +155,7 @@ async def request(self, metadata, method, url, **kwargs):
                     self._logger.error(
                         f"{tag}, {operation} - {status} {reason}, {message}"
                     )
-            raise AsyncAPIError(metadata, response, await response.text())
+                    raise AsyncAPIError(metadata, response, message)
 
     async def get(self, metadata, url, params=None):
         metadata["method"] = "GET"
diff --git a/meraki/exceptions.py b/meraki/exceptions.py
index ca9e804a..421f9633 100644
--- a/meraki/exceptions.py
+++ b/meraki/exceptions.py
@@ -31,12 +31,10 @@ def __init__(self, metadata, response, message):
         self.response = response
         self.tag = metadata['tags'][0]
         self.operation = metadata['operation']
-        self.status = self.response.status if self.response is not None and self.response.status else None
-        self.reason = self.response.reason if self.response is not None and self.response.reason else None
-        try:
-            self.message = self.response.json() if self.response is not None and self.response.json() else None
-        except ValueError:
-            self.message = self.response.text[:100]
+        self.status = response.status if response is not None and response.status else None
+        self.reason = response.reason if response is not None and response.reason else None
+        self.message = message
+
         super().__init__(
             f'{self.tag}, {self.operation} - {self.status} {self.reason}, {self.message}'
         )