diff --git a/source/blender/geometry/intern/realize_instances.cc b/source/blender/geometry/intern/realize_instances.cc
index d77ed7fe69a..c6636ed55ea 100644
--- a/source/blender/geometry/intern/realize_instances.cc
+++ b/source/blender/geometry/intern/realize_instances.cc
@@ -1680,7 +1680,12 @@ static void copy_vertex_group_names(Mesh &dst_mesh,
   for (const Mesh *mesh : src_meshes) {
     LISTBASE_FOREACH (const bDeformGroup *, src, &mesh->vertex_group_names) {
       const StringRef src_name = src->name;
-      const int attribute_index = ordered_attributes.ids.index_of(src_name);
+      const int attribute_index = ordered_attributes.ids.index_of_try(src_name);
+      if (attribute_index == -1) {
+        /* The attribute is not propagated to the result (possibly because the mesh isn't included
+         * in the realized output because of the #VariedDepthOptions input). */
+        continue;
+      }
       const bke::AttributeDomainAndType kind = ordered_attributes.kinds[attribute_index];
       if (kind.domain != bke::AttrDomain::Point || kind.data_type != CD_PROP_FLOAT) {
         /* Prefer using the highest priority domain and type from all input meshes. */
diff --git a/tests/files/modeling/geometry_nodes/instance/realize_instances_depth.blend b/tests/files/modeling/geometry_nodes/instance/realize_instances_depth.blend
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..cc810f96a30
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/files/modeling/geometry_nodes/instance/realize_instances_depth.blend
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1
+oid sha256:ba603a4fbc465d190ebd3d65a0fb319f3709b104b946eb817f78fad8c6ff9d0d
+size 104290