diff --git a/app/models/report.rb b/app/models/report.rb
index dd36975790..8ca5bf8fd8 100644
--- a/app/models/report.rb
+++ b/app/models/report.rb
@@ -176,6 +176,13 @@ class Report
         report.error = :timeout
       end
     rescue Exception => e
+      # ensures that if anything unexpected prevents us from
+      # creating a report object we fail elegantly and log an error
+      if !report
+        Rails.logger.error("Couldn’t create report `#{type}`: <#{e.class} #{e.message}>")
+        return nil
+      end
+
       report.error = :exception
 
       # given reports can be added by plugins we don’t want dashboard failures
diff --git a/spec/models/report_spec.rb b/spec/models/report_spec.rb
index 9cdd34cc4a..a432bb4632 100644
--- a/spec/models/report_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/models/report_spec.rb
@@ -813,6 +813,22 @@ describe Report do
     end
   end
 
+  describe "unexpected error on report initialization" do
+    it "returns no report" do
+      class ReportInitError < StandardError; end
+
+      Report.stubs(:new).raises(ReportInitError.new("x"))
+
+      Rails.logger.expects(:error)
+        .with('Couldn’t create report `signups`: <ReportInitError x>')
+        .once
+
+      report = Report.find('signups')
+
+      expect(report).to be_nil
+    end
+  end
+
   describe 'posts' do
     let(:report) { Report.find('posts') }