diff --git a/.github/helper/start-db.sh b/.github/helper/start-db.sh
index 6998adcfd91..e99d44babe1 100755
--- a/.github/helper/start-db.sh
+++ b/.github/helper/start-db.sh
@@ -56,10 +56,14 @@ mariadbd --no-defaults --datadir="$DATADIR" --socket="$SOCK" --pid-file="$DATADI
     --innodb-flush-log-at-trx-commit=0 --sync-binlog=0 --skip-log-bin \
     > "$HOME/mariadb.log" 2>&1 &
 
+up=0
 for _ in $(seq 1 60); do
-    mariadb-admin --socket="$SOCK" ping --silent 2>/dev/null && break
+    if mariadb-admin --socket="$SOCK" ping --silent 2>/dev/null; then up=1; break; fi
     sleep 1
 done
+# Fail loudly instead of letting the loop fall through (exit 0 of the last `sleep`) into SQL that
+# would error with a vague socket-connection failure.
+[ "$up" = "1" ] || { echo "mariadbd did not come up on $SOCK"; cat "$HOME/mariadb.log" 2>/dev/null; exit 1; }
 
 if [ "$fresh" = "1" ]; then
     # A fresh datadir has only a password-less root@localhost. Give it the password install.sh
diff --git a/.github/workflows/server-tests-mariadb.yml b/.github/workflows/server-tests-mariadb.yml
index 7e9fb72d6e9..5c2996b9bd0 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/server-tests-mariadb.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/server-tests-mariadb.yml
@@ -112,6 +112,9 @@ jobs:
         run: |
           mariadb-admin -h 127.0.0.1 -P 3306 -u root -proot shutdown || true
           for _ in $(seq 1 30); do [ -f /home/ci/db-data/mysqld.pid ] || break; sleep 1; done
+          # Don't bake a dirty datadir — fail if mariadbd didn't finish stopping, rather than ship
+          # an inconsistent datadir the shards would have to crash-recover.
+          [ -f /home/ci/db-data/mysqld.pid ] && { echo "mariadbd did not shut down cleanly"; exit 1; }
           mv /home/ci/db-data /home/ci/frappe-bench/mariadb-data
 
       # Package the whole bench (apps, venv, node_modules, sites, the DB dump, and hydrate.sh)
@@ -164,12 +167,11 @@ jobs:
           tar xzpf "/opt/ci-bench-staging/${GITHUB_RUN_ID}.tar.gz" -C /home/ci
           ls -ld /home/ci/frappe-bench
 
-      - name: Hydrate (DB up + restore + bench start)
+      - name: Hydrate (start DB on baked datadir + bench start)
         run: bash /home/ci/frappe-bench/hydrate.sh
         env:
           DB_HOST: 127.0.0.1
           SKIP_SYSTEM_SETUP: "1"
-          CI_BASELINE_BACKUP: /home/ci/frappe-bench/test_site-db.sql.gz
 
       - name: Run Tests
         run: |
@@ -178,7 +180,7 @@ jobs:
           coverage_flag=""
           if [ "$WITH_COVERAGE" = "true" ]; then coverage_flag="--with-coverage"; fi
           bench --site test_site run-parallel-tests --lightmode --app erpnext \
-            --total-builds 4 \
+            --total-builds ${{ strategy.job-total }} \
             --build-number ${{ matrix.container }} \
             $coverage_flag
           EOF