diff --git a/src/data/mod.rs b/src/data/mod.rs
index 9954573..80017e9 100644
--- a/src/data/mod.rs
+++ b/src/data/mod.rs
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ use loading::MultiTrainDataGenerator;
 use log::warn;
 use numpy::ndarray::prelude::*;
 use numpy::IntoPyArray;
+use pyo3::exceptions::PyStopIteration;
 use pyo3::prelude::*;
 use pyo3::types::{PyDict, PyIterator};
 use std::collections::HashMap;
@@ -777,26 +778,29 @@ impl InferenceLoader {
 
 pub struct InferenceIterator(Py<PyIterator>);
 
-impl InferenceIterator {
-    pub fn new(iter: Py<PyIterator>) -> Self {
-        InferenceIterator(iter)
-    }
-}
-
 impl Iterator for InferenceIterator {
     type Item = anyhow::Result<String>;
 
     fn next(&mut self) -> Option<Self::Item> {
         Python::with_gil(|py| {
-            let mut bound = self.0.clone_ref(py).into_bound(py);
-            let item = bound.next()?;
-            let Ok(item) = item else {
-                return Some(Err(anyhow!("error extracting item from iterator")));
+            let item = match self.0.call_method0(py, "__next__") {
+                Ok(item) => item,
+                Err(e) if e.is_instance_of::<PyStopIteration>(py) => {
+                    return None;
+                }
+                Err(e) => {
+                    return Some(Err(anyhow!(
+                        "error calling next on inference iterator: {e}"
+                    )))
+                }
             };
-            Some(
-                item.extract()
-                    .map_err(|py_err| anyhow!("error extracting item from iterator: {py_err}")),
-            )
+            match item.extract(py) {
+                Ok(None) => None,
+                Ok(Some(item)) => Some(Ok(item)),
+                Err(e) => Some(Err(anyhow!(
+                    "error extracting item from inference iterator: {e}"
+                ))),
+            }
         })
     }
 }
@@ -818,8 +822,7 @@ impl InferenceLoader {
         sort = false
     ))]
     pub fn from_iterator(
-        py: Python<'_>,
-        iterator: Py<PyIterator>,
+        iterator: Bound<'_, PyIterator>,
         tokenizer: TokenizerConfig,
         window: WindowConfig,
         ignore_special_tokens: bool,
@@ -830,19 +833,8 @@ impl InferenceLoader {
         prefetch_factor: usize,
         sort: bool,
     ) -> anyhow::Result<Self> {
-        let items: Vec<_> = iterator
-            .into_bound(py)
-            .map(|item| -> anyhow::Result<_> {
-                item.map_err(|e| anyhow!("error in inference iterator: {e}"))
-                    .and_then(|item| {
-                        item.extract().map_err(|e| {
-                            anyhow!("error extracting item in inference iterator: {e}")
-                        })
-                    })
-            })
-            .collect();
         Self::new(
-            items.into_iter(),
+            InferenceIterator(iterator.unbind()),
             tokenizer,
             ignore_special_tokens,
             window,