diff --git a/packages/playwright-core/src/client/tracing.ts b/packages/playwright-core/src/client/tracing.ts
index 1c14fd991d..8d4f8bfb1c 100644
--- a/packages/playwright-core/src/client/tracing.ts
+++ b/packages/playwright-core/src/client/tracing.ts
@@ -65,8 +65,12 @@ export class Tracing implements api.Tracing {
       return;
     }
 
+    // The artifact may be missing if the browser closed while stopping tracing.
+    if (!result.artifact)
+      return;
+
     // Save trace to the final local file.
-    const artifact = Artifact.from(result.artifact!);
+    const artifact = Artifact.from(result.artifact);
     await artifact.saveAs(filePath);
     await artifact.delete();
 
diff --git a/packages/playwright-core/src/protocol/protocol.yml b/packages/playwright-core/src/protocol/protocol.yml
index c1625e2885..648263f926 100644
--- a/packages/playwright-core/src/protocol/protocol.yml
+++ b/packages/playwright-core/src/protocol/protocol.yml
@@ -840,6 +840,7 @@ BrowserContext:
           - compressTrace
           - compressTraceAndSources
       returns:
+        # The artifact may be missing if the browser closes while tracing is beeing stopped.
         artifact: Artifact?
         sourceEntries:
           type: array?