diff --git a/src/shared/varlink.c b/src/shared/varlink.c
index c34a08cf57..b31ca108fe 100644
--- a/src/shared/varlink.c
+++ b/src/shared/varlink.c
@@ -416,9 +416,10 @@ static int varlink_test_disconnect(Varlink *v) {
         if (IN_SET(v->state, VARLINK_IDLE_CLIENT) && (v->write_disconnected || v->got_pollhup))
                 goto disconnect;
 
-        /* The server is still expecting to write more, but its write end is disconnected and it got a POLLHUP
-         * (i.e. from a disconnected client), so disconnect. */
-        if (IN_SET(v->state, VARLINK_PENDING_METHOD, VARLINK_PENDING_METHOD_MORE) && v->write_disconnected && v->got_pollhup)
+        /* We are on the server side and still want to send out more replies, but we saw POLLHUP already, and
+         * either got no buffered bytes to write anymore or already saw a write error. In that case we should
+         * shut down the varlink link. */
+        if (IN_SET(v->state, VARLINK_PENDING_METHOD, VARLINK_PENDING_METHOD_MORE) && (v->write_disconnected || v->output_buffer_size == 0) && v->got_pollhup)
                 goto disconnect;
 
         return 0;