diff --git a/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/components/model/transform-trace-data.test.ts b/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/components/model/transform-trace-data.test.ts
index 7ff8742e335..53d3f3b696d 100644
--- a/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/components/model/transform-trace-data.test.ts
+++ b/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/components/model/transform-trace-data.test.ts
@@ -143,58 +143,6 @@ describe('transformTraceData()', () => {
     expect(transformTraceData(traceData)).toEqual(null);
   });
 
-  it('should return null for any span without a spanID', () => {
-    const traceData = {
-      traceID,
-      processes,
-      spans: [
-        {
-          traceID,
-          operationName: 'rootOperation',
-          references: [
-            {
-              refType: 'CHILD_OF',
-              traceID,
-              spanID: rootSpanID,
-            },
-          ],
-          startTime,
-          duration,
-          tags: [],
-          processID: 'p1',
-        },
-      ],
-    } as unknown as TraceResponse;
-
-    expect(transformTraceData(traceData)).toEqual(null);
-  });
-
-  it('should return null for any span without a processID', () => {
-    const traceData = {
-      traceID,
-      processes,
-      spans: [
-        {
-          traceID,
-          spanID: '41f71485ed2593e4',
-          operationName: 'rootOperation',
-          references: [
-            {
-              refType: 'CHILD_OF',
-              traceID,
-              spanID: rootSpanID,
-            },
-          ],
-          startTime,
-          duration,
-          tags: [],
-        },
-      ],
-    } as unknown as TraceResponse;
-
-    expect(transformTraceData(traceData)).toEqual(null);
-  });
-
   it('should return trace data with correct traceName based on root span with missing ref', () => {
     const traceData = {
       traceID,
diff --git a/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/components/model/transform-trace-data.tsx b/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/components/model/transform-trace-data.tsx
index fef8f4fcf8e..ccd1905bd77 100644
--- a/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/components/model/transform-trace-data.tsx
+++ b/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/components/model/transform-trace-data.tsx
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ export function orderTags(tags: TraceKeyValuePair[], topPrefixes?: string[]) {
  * generally requires.
  */
 export default function transformTraceData(data: TraceResponse | undefined): Trace | null {
-  if (!data?.traceID || data?.spans.some((x) => !x.processID || !x.spanID)) {
+  if (!data?.traceID) {
     return null;
   }
   const traceID = data.traceID.toLowerCase();
diff --git a/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/utils/transform.test.ts b/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/utils/transform.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..dc92293493e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/utils/transform.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+import { createDataFrame } from '@grafana/data';
+
+import { transformTraceDataFrame } from './transform';
+
+describe('transformTraceDataFrame()', () => {
+  const fields = [
+    { name: 'traceID', values: ['trace1'] },
+    { name: 'operationName', values: ['operation1'] },
+    { name: 'kind', values: ['server'] },
+    { name: 'tags', values: [[{ key: 'key1', value: 'value1' }]] },
+  ];
+
+  it('should return transformed data', () => {
+    const dummyDataFrame = createDataFrame({
+      fields: fields.concat([...fields, { name: 'spanID', values: ['span1'] }]),
+    });
+    expect(transformTraceDataFrame(dummyDataFrame)).toEqual({
+      processes: { span1: { serviceName: undefined, tags: undefined } },
+      spans: [
+        {
+          dataFrameRowIndex: 0,
+          duration: NaN,
+          flags: 0,
+          kind: 'server',
+          logs: [],
+          operationName: 'operation1',
+          processID: 'span1',
+          references: [],
+          spanID: 'span1',
+          startTime: NaN,
+          tags: [{ key: 'key1', value: 'value1' }],
+          traceID: 'trace1',
+        },
+      ],
+      traceID: 'trace1',
+    });
+  });
+
+  it('should return null for any span without a spanID', () => {
+    const dummyDataFrame = createDataFrame({
+      fields: fields,
+    });
+    expect(transformTraceDataFrame(dummyDataFrame)).toEqual(null);
+  });
+});
diff --git a/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/utils/transform.ts b/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/utils/transform.ts
index 07f5d2a144e..f731ac653da 100644
--- a/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/utils/transform.ts
+++ b/public/app/features/explore/TraceView/utils/transform.ts
@@ -6,19 +6,26 @@ export function transformDataFrames(frame?: DataFrame): Trace | null {
   if (!frame) {
     return null;
   }
-  let data: TraceResponse =
+  let data: TraceResponse | null =
     frame.fields.length === 1
       ? // For backward compatibility when we sent whole json response in a single field/value
         frame.fields[0].values[0]
       : transformTraceDataFrame(frame);
+
+  if (!data) {
+    return null;
+  }
   return transformTraceData(data);
 }
 
-function transformTraceDataFrame(frame: DataFrame): TraceResponse {
+export function transformTraceDataFrame(frame: DataFrame): TraceResponse | null {
   const view = new DataFrameView<TraceSpanRow>(frame);
   const processes: Record<string, TraceProcess> = {};
   for (let i = 0; i < view.length; i++) {
     const span = view.get(i);
+    if (!span.spanID) {
+      return null;
+    }
     if (!processes[span.spanID]) {
       processes[span.spanID] = {
         serviceName: span.serviceName,