diff --git a/documentation/docs/30-advanced/40-service-workers.md b/documentation/docs/30-advanced/40-service-workers.md
index 33c90f663289..a4888a6ac8de 100644
--- a/documentation/docs/30-advanced/40-service-workers.md
+++ b/documentation/docs/30-advanced/40-service-workers.md
@@ -66,7 +66,11 @@ self.addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {
 
 		// `build`/`files` can always be served from the cache
 		if (ASSETS.includes(url.pathname)) {
-			return cache.match(url.pathname);
+			const response = await cache.match(url.pathname);
+
+			if (response) {
+				return response;
+			}
 		}
 
 		// for everything else, try the network first, but
@@ -74,13 +78,27 @@ self.addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {
 		try {
 			const response = await fetch(event.request);
 
+			// if we're offline, fetch can return a value that is not a Response
+			// instead of throwing - and we can't pass this non-Response to respondWith
+			if (!(response instanceof Response)) {
+				throw new Error('invalid response from fetch');
+			}
+
 			if (response.status === 200) {
 				cache.put(event.request, response.clone());
 			}
 
 			return response;
-		} catch {
-			return cache.match(event.request);
+		} catch (err) {
+			const response = await cache.match(event.request);
+
+			if (response) {
+				return response;
+			}
+
+			// if there's no cache, then just error out
+			// as there is nothing we can do to respond to this request
+			throw err;
 		}
 	}