diff --git a/gst/gstbuffer.c b/gst/gstbuffer.c
index d0f9c6d..0a8f749 100644
--- a/gst/gstbuffer.c
+++ b/gst/gstbuffer.c
@@ -755,6 +755,17 @@
 
   GST_CAT_LOG (GST_CAT_BUFFER, "finalize %p", buffer);
 
+  /* get the size, when unreffing the memory, we could also unref the buffer
+   * itself */
+  msize = GST_BUFFER_SLICE_SIZE (buffer);
+
+  /* free our memory */
+  len = GST_BUFFER_MEM_LEN (buffer);
+  for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
+    gst_memory_unlock (GST_BUFFER_MEM_PTR (buffer, i), GST_LOCK_FLAG_EXCLUSIVE);
+    gst_memory_unref (GST_BUFFER_MEM_PTR (buffer, i));
+  }
+
   /* free metadata */
   for (walk = GST_BUFFER_META (buffer); walk; walk = next) {
     GstMeta *meta = &walk->meta;
@@ -769,17 +780,6 @@
     g_slice_free1 (ITEM_SIZE (info), walk);
   }
 
-  /* get the size, when unreffing the memory, we could also unref the buffer
-   * itself */
-  msize = GST_BUFFER_SLICE_SIZE (buffer);
-
-  /* free our memory */
-  len = GST_BUFFER_MEM_LEN (buffer);
-  for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
-    gst_memory_unlock (GST_BUFFER_MEM_PTR (buffer, i), GST_LOCK_FLAG_EXCLUSIVE);
-    gst_memory_unref (GST_BUFFER_MEM_PTR (buffer, i));
-  }
-
   /* we set msize to 0 when the buffer is part of the memory block */
   if (msize) {
 #ifdef USE_POISONING