diff --git a/doc/CMakeLists.txt b/doc/CMakeLists.txt
index 1747bfb62..dfc2bf9cf 100644
--- a/doc/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/doc/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -34,10 +34,19 @@
 
       message(STATUS "Building API Documentation (mandatory for Python binding or for building the manual)")
 
-      set(SPHINX_EXTRA_API ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/manual/extra_html/api)
-      file(MAKE_DIRECTORY ${SPHINX_EXTRA_API})
-
-      execute_process(COMMAND ${DOXYGEN_EXECUTABLE} ${DOXYGEN_INPUT} OUTPUT_QUIET)
+      execute_process(
+        COMMAND ${DOXYGEN_EXECUTABLE} ${DOXYGEN_INPUT}
+        OUTPUT_QUIET
+        ERROR_VARIABLE DOXYGEN_ERROR
+        RESULT_VARIABLE DOXYGEN_RESULT
+      )
+      if(NOT DOXYGEN_RESULT EQUAL 0)
+        if(DOXYGEN_RESULT STREQUAL "Segmentation fault" AND EXISTS "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/doc/api/xml/index.xml")
+          message(WARNING "Doxygen exited with '${DOXYGEN_RESULT}' but generated XML output. Continuing so Python docstrings can still be generated.")
+        else()
+          message(FATAL_ERROR "Doxygen failed to generate the API documentation (exit code ${DOXYGEN_RESULT}), which is required for the Python docstrings. Doxygen errors: ${DOXYGEN_ERROR}")
+        endif()
+      endif()
       add_custom_target(api COMMAND ${DOXYGEN_EXECUTABLE} ${DOXYGEN_INPUT} OUTPUT_QUIET)
 
     endif()
diff --git a/python/CMakeLists.txt b/python/CMakeLists.txt
index bab5e84ba..cd3c68f44 100644
--- a/python/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/python/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -64,7 +64,11 @@
     execute_process(COMMAND ${PYTHON_EXECUTABLE}
       ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/scripts/doxygen/doxygen2docstring.py
       ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/../doc/api/xml/
-      ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/docstring)
+      ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/docstring
+      RESULT_VARIABLE DOCSTRING_RESULT)
+    if(NOT DOCSTRING_RESULT EQUAL 0)
+      message(FATAL_ERROR "doxygen2docstring.py failed (exit code ${DOCSTRING_RESULT}) while generating the Python docstring headers.")
+    endif()
 
   endif()