diff --git a/.circleci/setup-virtualenv.sh b/.circleci/setup-virtualenv.sh
index 40f803db1..b2e38cbba 100755
--- a/.circleci/setup-virtualenv.sh
+++ b/.circleci/setup-virtualenv.sh
@@ -7,8 +7,9 @@ TAHOE_LAFS_TOX_ARGS=$1
 shift || :
 
 # Make sure the ownership of the pip cache directory is correct.  The CircleCI
-# cache management operations seem to mess it up.
-sudo chown --recursive nobody /tmp/nobody/.cache
+# cache management operations seem to mess it up.  The cache directory might
+# not exist if there was no matching cache to restore.
+[ -e /tmp/nobody/.cache ] && sudo chown --recursive nobody /tmp/nobody/.cache
 
 # Set up the virtualenv as a non-root user so we can run the test suite as a
 # non-root user.  See below.