diff --git a/kernel/trace/trace_events_hist.c b/kernel/trace/trace_events_hist.c
index d239004aaf29..eb908ef2ecec 100644
--- a/kernel/trace/trace_events_hist.c
+++ b/kernel/trace/trace_events_hist.c
@@ -1063,8 +1063,10 @@ static int create_synth_event(int argc, char **argv)
 		event = NULL;
 		ret = -EEXIST;
 		goto out;
-	} else if (delete_event)
+	} else if (delete_event) {
+		ret = -ENOENT;
 		goto out;
+	}
 
 	if (argc < 2) {
 		ret = -EINVAL;
diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/ftrace/test.d/trigger/inter-event/trigger-synthetic-event-createremove.tc b/tools/testing/selftests/ftrace/test.d/trigger/inter-event/trigger-synthetic-event-createremove.tc
index 8d647fb572dd..41128219231a 100644
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/ftrace/test.d/trigger/inter-event/trigger-synthetic-event-createremove.tc
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/ftrace/test.d/trigger/inter-event/trigger-synthetic-event-createremove.tc
@@ -25,18 +25,18 @@ fi
 
 reset_trigger
 
+echo "Test remove synthetic event"
+echo '!wakeup_latency  u64 lat pid_t pid char comm[16]' >> synthetic_events
+if [ -d events/synthetic/wakeup_latency ]; then
+    fail "Failed to delete wakeup_latency synthetic event"
+fi
+
+reset_trigger
+
 echo "Test create synthetic event with an error"
 echo 'wakeup_latency  u64 lat pid_t pid char' > synthetic_events > /dev/null
 if [ -d events/synthetic/wakeup_latency ]; then
     fail "Created wakeup_latency synthetic event with an invalid format"
 fi
 
-reset_trigger
-
-echo "Test remove synthetic event"
-echo '!wakeup_latency  u64 lat pid_t pid char comm[16]' > synthetic_events
-if [ -d events/synthetic/wakeup_latency ]; then
-    fail "Failed to delete wakeup_latency synthetic event"
-fi
-
 exit 0