diff --git a/superset-frontend/src/dashboard/util/findPermission.test.ts b/superset-frontend/src/dashboard/util/findPermission.test.ts
index 1fbb791e3d..f90c2800f4 100644
--- a/superset-frontend/src/dashboard/util/findPermission.test.ts
+++ b/superset-frontend/src/dashboard/util/findPermission.test.ts
@@ -132,6 +132,13 @@ describe('canUserEditDashboard', () => {
   it('rejects nonexistent users', () => {
     expect(canUserEditDashboard(dashboard, null)).toEqual(false);
   });
+  it('rejects missing roles', () => {
+    // in redux, when there is no user, the user is actually set to an empty object,
+    // so we need to handle missing roles as well as a missing user.s
+    expect(
+      canUserEditDashboard(dashboard, {} as UserWithPermissionsAndRoles),
+    ).toEqual(false);
+  });
   it('rejects "admins" if the admin role does not have edit rights for some reason', () => {
     expect(
       canUserEditDashboard(dashboard, {
diff --git a/superset-frontend/src/dashboard/util/findPermission.ts b/superset-frontend/src/dashboard/util/findPermission.ts
index 995c5d7967..8f28a03c99 100644
--- a/superset-frontend/src/dashboard/util/findPermission.ts
+++ b/superset-frontend/src/dashboard/util/findPermission.ts
@@ -48,6 +48,6 @@ export const canUserEditDashboard = (
   dashboard: Dashboard,
   user?: UserWithPermissionsAndRoles | null,
 ) =>
-  !!user &&
+  !!user?.roles &&
   (isUserAdmin(user) || isUserDashboardOwner(dashboard, user)) &&
   findPermission('can_write', 'Dashboard', user.roles);