diff --git a/frontend/src/queries/query.ts b/frontend/src/queries/query.ts
index 10aaf96318eea..9628a177b39f0 100644
--- a/frontend/src/queries/query.ts
+++ b/frontend/src/queries/query.ts
@@ -158,6 +158,7 @@ async function executeQuery<N extends DataNode>(
                     onerror(err) {
                         abortController.abort()
                         reject(err)
+                        throw err // make sure fetchEventSource doesn't attempt to retry
                     },
                 }).catch(reject)
             })
diff --git a/posthog/api/query.py b/posthog/api/query.py
index 8143474256e32..695fbc9456b4c 100644
--- a/posthog/api/query.py
+++ b/posthog/api/query.py
@@ -314,7 +314,8 @@ async def event_stream():
                             status = await sync_to_async(manager.get_clickhouse_progresses)()
 
                             if isinstance(status, BaseModel):
-                                yield f"data: {status.model_dump_json(by_alias=True)}\n\n".encode()
+                                status_update = {"complete": False, **status.model_dump(by_alias=True)}
+                                yield f"data: {json.dumps(status_update)}\n\n".encode()
                                 last_update_time = current_time
                     # Just ignore errors when getting progress, shouldn't impact users
                     except Exception as e: