diff --git a/client/src/cmdtrace.c b/client/src/cmdtrace.c
index 9182608ae..da82e3834 100644
--- a/client/src/cmdtrace.c
+++ b/client/src/cmdtrace.c
@@ -1094,8 +1094,9 @@ static int CmdTraceLoad(const char *Cmd) {
     CLIParserFree(ctx);
 
     if (gs_trace) {
-        free(gs_trace);
+        free(gs_trace);	// maybe better to not clobber this until we have successful load?
         gs_trace = NULL;
+	gs_traceLen = 0;
     }
 
     size_t len = 0;