diff --git a/tests/integration/_search_helpers.py b/tests/integration/_search_helpers.py
index c40ddb29..198ceea9 100644
--- a/tests/integration/_search_helpers.py
+++ b/tests/integration/_search_helpers.py
@@ -35,14 +35,27 @@ async def document_is_searchable(
         logger.debug("Semantic search poll error: %s", search)
         return False
 
-    results = json.loads(search.content[0].text).get("results", [])
+    try:
+        results = json.loads(search.content[0].text).get("results", [])
+    except (IndexError, ValueError) as e:  # empty content / malformed JSON
+        logger.debug("Semantic search parse failed: %s", e)
+        return False
+
     # Token match (not contiguous substring) so multi-word terms work in the
     # note_id-less fallback path.
     tokens = search_term.lower().split()
     for r in results:
         if note_id is not None:
-            if r.get("id") == note_id and r.get("doc_type") == "note":
-                return True
+            if r.get("id") == note_id:
+                if r.get("doc_type") == "note":
+                    return True
+                # id matched but not a note — surface possible schema drift
+                # rather than silently timing out.
+                logger.debug(
+                    "search hit id=%s has doc_type=%s (expected note)",
+                    note_id,
+                    r.get("doc_type"),
+                )
         else:
             haystack = f"{r.get('title', '')} {r.get('excerpt', '')}".lower()
             if tokens and all(t in haystack for t in tokens):
diff --git a/tests/integration/test_astrolabe_session_jwt_search.py b/tests/integration/test_astrolabe_session_jwt_search.py
index 40141b0e..782a0b9b 100644
--- a/tests/integration/test_astrolabe_session_jwt_search.py
+++ b/tests/integration/test_astrolabe_session_jwt_search.py
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ _SEARCH_TIMEOUT = httpx.Timeout(90.0)
 
 
 async def _get_with_retry(
-    client: httpx.AsyncClient, url: str, *, max_attempts: int = 3, **kwargs
+    client: httpx.AsyncClient, url: str, *, max_attempts: int = 2, **kwargs
 ) -> httpx.Response:
     """GET, retrying on transient transport errors (timeouts/conn resets)."""
     last_exc: httpx.TransportError | None = None
@@ -74,6 +74,7 @@ async def _astrolabe_configured(client: httpx.AsyncClient, auth) -> bool:
     return bool(resp.json().get("success"))
 
 
+@pytest.mark.timeout(300)  # cold model load + retry can exceed the 180s default
 async def test_session_user_searches_without_provisioning(test_users_setup):
     """A non-admin session user searches with no OAuth/provisioning step.
 
@@ -111,6 +112,7 @@ async def test_session_user_searches_without_provisioning(test_users_setup):
     assert "results" in body and "algorithm_used" in body
 
 
+@pytest.mark.timeout(300)  # cold model load + retry can exceed the 180s default
 async def test_admin_session_search_succeeds():
     """The same JWT-mint path works for the admin session user."""
     admin_pw = os.environ["NEXTCLOUD_PASSWORD"]