diff --git a/deltachat-rpc-client/src/deltachat_rpc_client/rpc.py b/deltachat-rpc-client/src/deltachat_rpc_client/rpc.py
index 237a89145f..6f0ab84aef 100644
--- a/deltachat-rpc-client/src/deltachat_rpc_client/rpc.py
+++ b/deltachat-rpc-client/src/deltachat_rpc_client/rpc.py
@@ -149,7 +149,10 @@ def start(self) -> None:
     def close(self) -> None:
         """Terminate RPC server process and wait until the reader loop finishes."""
         self.closing = True
-        self.stop_io_for_all_accounts()
+        # JSON-RPC error may happen if RPC server process has crashed already.
+        # We still want to shutdown all threads in this case.
+        with contextlib.suppress(JsonRpcError):
+            self.stop_io_for_all_accounts()
         # Let `events_loop` stop cleanly on `closing` before the pipe goes away,
         # otherwise it might exit through an "RPC server closed" error instead.
         self.events_thread.join()
diff --git a/deltachat-rpc-client/tests/test_something.py b/deltachat-rpc-client/tests/test_something.py
index 70743f4be9..148d8cb998 100644
--- a/deltachat-rpc-client/tests/test_something.py
+++ b/deltachat-rpc-client/tests/test_something.py
@@ -35,6 +35,19 @@ def test_sleep(rpc) -> None:
         assert sleep_5_future in pending
 
 
+def test_shutdown(rpc) -> None:
+    """Test RPC client shutdown if RPC server process is terminated.
+
+    This is a regression test, at the time of adding it RPC client
+    did not terminate all threads and python process did not exit.
+    Shutting down all threads is tested implicitly by pytest-timeout.
+    """
+    rpc.process.kill()
+    rpc.process.wait()
+    with pytest.raises(JsonRpcError):
+        rpc.get_system_info()
+
+
 def test_email_address_validity(rpc) -> None:
     valid_addresses = [
         "email@example.com",