diff --git a/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Cache/DatabaseBackend.php b/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Cache/DatabaseBackend.php
index 433ff21..5f72914 100644
--- a/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Cache/DatabaseBackend.php
+++ b/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Cache/DatabaseBackend.php
@@ -146,6 +146,9 @@ class DatabaseBackend implements CacheBackendInterface {
     }
     catch (Exception $e) {
       // The database may not be available, so we'll ignore cache_set requests.
+      // We can't use watchdog() because most sites will be using dblog, so we
+      // log directly to the PHP error log.
+      error_log("Unable to set an item in the cache: " . $e->getMessage());
     }
   }