diff --git a/web-static/sharechain-explorer/tests/visual/run.sh b/web-static/sharechain-explorer/tests/visual/run.sh
index fcba0fc88..119095325 100755
--- a/web-static/sharechain-explorer/tests/visual/run.sh
+++ b/web-static/sharechain-explorer/tests/visual/run.sh
@@ -7,6 +7,14 @@ cd "$(dirname "$0")"
 
 PORT="${PORT:-18082}"
 THRESHOLD="${THRESHOLD:-0.025}"
+# Bounded health-poll budget before puppeteer is allowed to navigate.
+# The mock server can bind slowly on a CPU-starved self-hosted runner
+# (VM905), so a too-short wait races the server start and puppeteer hits
+# a dead port (net::ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED, job 89644021788) — an infra
+# flake wrongly surfaced as a page/pixel assertion failure. 60s covers
+# cold-start jitter without masking a genuinely-hung server.
+READY_TIMEOUT="${READY_TIMEOUT:-60}"
+HEALTH_URL="http://127.0.0.1:${PORT}/sharechain/tip"
 
 mkdir -p out
 
@@ -17,11 +25,34 @@ echo "[2/4] starting mock server on :$PORT"
 node mock-server.mjs "$PORT" >out/mock-server.log 2>&1 &
 SERVER_PID=$!
 trap 'kill $SERVER_PID 2>/dev/null || true' EXIT
-# Wait for server to bind.
-for i in {1..30}; do
-  if curl -sf "http://127.0.0.1:$PORT/sharechain/tip" >/dev/null; then break; fi
-  sleep 0.2
+
+# Health-poll until the server answers, bounded by READY_TIMEOUT, and
+# GATE the navigate on the result. If the port never comes up we fail
+# loudly with a distinguishable infra message (not a page assertion) so
+# a real regression is never confused with a server-start race. Also
+# bail early if the server process died (e.g. port already in use).
+echo "[2b] waiting up to ${READY_TIMEOUT}s for mock server at ${HEALTH_URL}"
+start=$SECONDS
+deadline=$((start + READY_TIMEOUT))
+ready=0
+while [ "$SECONDS" -lt "$deadline" ]; do
+  if ! kill -0 "$SERVER_PID" 2>/dev/null; then
+    echo "::error::INFRA (not a page regression): mock server pid $SERVER_PID exited before binding :$PORT" >&2
+    break
+  fi
+  if curl -sf "$HEALTH_URL" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+    ready=1
+    echo "mock server ready after $((SECONDS - start))s"
+    break
+  fi
+  sleep 0.5
 done
+if [ "$ready" -ne 1 ]; then
+  echo "::error::INFRA (not a page regression): static mock server never became ready on 127.0.0.1:${PORT} within ${READY_TIMEOUT}s — puppeteer navigation skipped so a server-start race is not reported as a page-assertion failure." >&2
+  echo "---- tail of out/mock-server.log ----" >&2
+  tail -n 40 out/mock-server.log >&2 || true
+  exit 3
+fi
 
 echo "[3/4] capturing screenshots"
 node capture.mjs "$PORT"