diff --git a/tests/testthat/helper.R b/tests/testthat/helper.R
index b66210eb6..d504070e1 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/helper.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/helper.R
@@ -62,6 +62,16 @@ skip_if_not_utf8_locale <- function() {
   testthat::skip_if_not(l10n_info()[["UTF-8"]], "Not a UTF-8 locale")
 }
 
+safe_load_help_db <- function() {
+  help_db <- tryCatch(tools::Rd_db("lintr"), error = function(e) NULL)
+  # e.g. in dev under pkgload::load_all()
+  if (length(help_db) == 0L) {
+    help_db <- tryCatch(tools::Rd_db(dir = testthat::test_path("..", "..")), error = function(e) NULL)
+    testthat::skip_if_not(length(help_db) > 0L, message = "Package help corrupted or not installed")
+  }
+  help_db
+}
+
 pipes <- function(exclude = NULL) {
   if (getRversion() < "4.1.0") exclude <- unique(c(exclude, "|>"))
   all_pipes <- c(
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-linter_tags.R b/tests/testthat/test-linter_tags.R
index 92ee49f80..800831fef 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-linter_tags.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-linter_tags.R
@@ -103,12 +103,7 @@ test_that("rownames for available_linters data frame doesn't have missing entrie
 # See the roxygen helpers in R/linter_tags.R for the code used to generate the docs.
 #   This test helps ensure the documentation is up to date with the available_linters() database
 test_that("lintr help files are up to date", {
-  help_db <- tools::Rd_db("lintr")
-  # e.g. in dev under pkgload::load_all()
-  if (length(help_db) == 0L) {
-    help_db <- tools::Rd_db(dir = test_path("..", ".."))
-    skip_if_not(length(help_db) > 0L, message = "Package help not installed or corrupted")
-  }
+  help_db <- safe_load_help_db()
 
   lintr_db <- available_linters(exclude_tags = NULL)
   lintr_db$package <- NULL
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-lintr-package.R b/tests/testthat/test-lintr-package.R
index e7be3c484..80d668b69 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-lintr-package.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-lintr-package.R
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 test_that("All linter help files have examples", {
-  help_db <- tools::Rd_db("lintr")
+  help_db <- safe_load_help_db()
   linter_db <- help_db[endsWith(names(help_db), "_linter.Rd")]
   rd_has_examples <- function(rd) any(vapply(rd, attr, "Rd_tag", FUN.VALUE = character(1L)) == "\\examples")
   linter_has_examples <- vapply(linter_db, rd_has_examples, logical(1L))