diff --git a/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-etm-perf.c b/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-etm-perf.c
index 84f1dcb6982724..c4b9898e284186 100644
--- a/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-etm-perf.c
+++ b/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-etm-perf.c
@@ -310,6 +310,16 @@ static void etm_event_start(struct perf_event *event, int flags)
 	if (!event_data)
 		goto fail;
 
+	/*
+	 * Check if this ETM is allowed to trace, as decided
+	 * at etm_setup_aux(). This could be due to an unreachable
+	 * sink from this ETM. We can't do much in this case if
+	 * the sink was specified or hinted to the driver. For
+	 * now, simply don't record anything on this ETM.
+	 */
+	if (!cpumask_test_cpu(cpu, &event_data->mask))
+		goto fail_end_stop;
+
 	path = etm_event_cpu_path(event_data, cpu);
 	/* We need a sink, no need to continue without one */
 	sink = coresight_get_sink(path);