diff --git a/.gitea/workflows/ci.yml b/.gitea/workflows/ci.yml
index 46e38aa1..75c1efe1 100644
--- a/.gitea/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.gitea/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -229,9 +229,14 @@ jobs:
     name: Backend Unit Tests
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     env:
-      DOCKER_API_VERSION: "1.43"  # NAS runner runs Docker 24.x (max API 1.43); Testcontainers 2.x defaults to 1.44
+      # CI runs against the root-server Docker daemon (29.x). This API pin is a harmless
+      # carry-over from the old NAS runner (Docker 24.x, max API 1.43); safe to drop later.
+      DOCKER_API_VERSION: "1.43"
       DOCKER_HOST: unix:///var/run/docker.sock
-      TESTCONTAINERS_RYUK_DISABLED: "true"
+      # Ryuk (Testcontainers' out-of-process reaper) is intentionally LEFT ENABLED so it
+      # removes each run's containers after the JVM exits. Disabling it forced the in-JVM
+      # reaper, which hung at JVM shutdown and leaked Postgres containers run-over-run until
+      # the daemon degraded and the fork timed out at teardown — see #848.
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 
diff --git a/backend/pom.xml b/backend/pom.xml
index b01f2362..20e34b91 100644
--- a/backend/pom.xml
+++ b/backend/pom.xml
@@ -369,6 +369,12 @@
 				<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
 				<configuration>
 					<forkedProcessTimeoutInSeconds>600</forkedProcessTimeoutInSeconds>
+					<!-- Grace period after the test JVM calls System.exit(0). The 30s default is too
+					     short: the single reused fork closes ~32 cached Spring contexts at shutdown,
+					     each tearing down a Testcontainers Postgres + HikariCP pool, which overruns 30s
+					     and makes Surefire kill the fork (BUILD FAILURE despite 0 test failures). This is
+					     a different knob from forkedProcessTimeoutInSeconds above. See issue #848. -->
+					<forkedProcessExitTimeoutInSeconds>120</forkedProcessExitTimeoutInSeconds>
 					<systemPropertyVariables>
 						<junit.jupiter.execution.timeout.default>90 s</junit.jupiter.execution.timeout.default>
 					</systemPropertyVariables>