diff --git a/tools/mtmd/clip.cpp b/tools/mtmd/clip.cpp
index cd6421def..1783c7ddf 100644
--- a/tools/mtmd/clip.cpp
+++ b/tools/mtmd/clip.cpp
@@ -4436,7 +4436,10 @@ bool clip_encode(struct clip_ctx * ctx, struct clip_encode_params * params) {
     // build the inference graph
     ggml_backend_sched_reset(ctx->sched.get());
     ggml_cgraph * gf = clip_get_graph_builder(ctx, imgs, params)->build();
-    ggml_backend_sched_alloc_graph(ctx->sched.get(), gf);
+    if (!ggml_backend_sched_alloc_graph(ctx->sched.get(), gf)) {
+        LOG_ERR("%s: failed to allocate compute graph\n", __func__);
+        return false;
+    }
 
     // set inputs
     const auto & model   = ctx->model;