diff --git a/exiftool/exiftool.py b/exiftool/exiftool.py
index 54e1f7f..a87a758 100644
--- a/exiftool/exiftool.py
+++ b/exiftool/exiftool.py
@@ -831,7 +831,7 @@ def terminate(self, timeout: int = 30, _del: bool = False) -> None:
 			#print("before comm", self._process.poll(), self._process)
 			self._process.poll()
 			# TODO freezes here on windows if subprocess zombie remains
-			outs, errs = self._process.communicate()  # have to cleanup the process or else .poll() will return None
+			self._process.communicate()  # have to cleanup the process or else .poll() will return None
 			#print("after comm")
 			# TODO a bug filed with Python, or user error... this doesn't seem to work at all ... .communicate() still hangs
 			# https://bugs.python.org/issue43784 ... Windows-specific issue affecting Python 3.8-3.10 (as of this time)
@@ -844,11 +844,10 @@ def terminate(self, timeout: int = 30, _del: bool = False) -> None:
 					On Linux, this runs as is, and the process terminates properly
 				"""
 				self._process.communicate(input=b"-stay_open\nFalse\n", timeout=timeout)  # this is a constant sequence specified by PH's exiftool
-				self._process.kill()
 			except subprocess.TimeoutExpired:  # this is new in Python 3.3 (for python 2.x, use the PyPI subprocess32 module)
-				self._process.kill()
-				outs, errs = self._process.communicate()
-				# err handling code from https://docs.python.org/3/library/subprocess.html#subprocess.Popen.communicate
+				pass
+			# In any case, kill the process.
+			self._process.kill()
 
 		self._flag_running_false()