diff --git a/src/db/db/dbLayoutToNetlist.cc b/src/db/db/dbLayoutToNetlist.cc
index 3e54f5cac..29e5cc66e 100644
--- a/src/db/db/dbLayoutToNetlist.cc
+++ b/src/db/db/dbLayoutToNetlist.cc
@@ -302,17 +302,6 @@ void LayoutToNetlist::extract_devices (db::NetlistDeviceExtractor &extractor, co
     }
   }
 
-  if (! extractor.device_class ()) {
-    db::DeviceClass *ddc = extractor.default_device_class ();
-    if (ddc) {
-      extractor.register_device_class (ddc);
-    }
-  }
-
-  if (! extractor.device_class ()) {
-    throw tl::Exception (tl::to_string (tr ("No device class registered for device extractor '%s' - cannot extract devices.")), extractor.name ());
-  }
-
   extractor.extract (dss (), m_layout_index, layers, m_net_clusters, m_device_scaling);
 
   //  transfer errors to log entries
diff --git a/src/db/db/dbNetlistDeviceExtractor.cc b/src/db/db/dbNetlistDeviceExtractor.cc
index db7f31c73..6735cfa04 100644
--- a/src/db/db/dbNetlistDeviceExtractor.cc
+++ b/src/db/db/dbNetlistDeviceExtractor.cc
@@ -94,6 +94,15 @@ static void insert_into_region (const db::NetShape &s, const db::ICplxTrans &tr,
 
 void NetlistDeviceExtractor::extract (db::DeepShapeStore &dss, unsigned int layout_index, const NetlistDeviceExtractor::input_layers &layer_map, hier_clusters_type &clusters, double device_scaling)
 {
+  //  If no device class is registered, use the default device class
+  if (! device_class ()) {
+    db::DeviceClass *ddc = default_device_class ();
+    if (! ddc) {
+      throw tl::Exception (tl::to_string (tr ("No device class registered for device extractor '%s' - cannot extract devices.")), name ());
+    }
+    register_device_class (ddc);
+  }
+
   std::vector<unsigned int> layers;
   layers.reserve (m_layer_definitions.size ());