diff --git a/hermes_cli/web_server.py b/hermes_cli/web_server.py
index 93c4684fc20..ba51fdbd70a 100644
--- a/hermes_cli/web_server.py
+++ b/hermes_cli/web_server.py
@@ -3391,7 +3391,7 @@ async def _broadcast_event(channel: str, payload: str) -> None:
         except Exception:
             # Subscriber went away mid-send; the /api/events finally clause
             # will remove it from the registry on its next iteration.
-            pass
+            _log.warning("broadcast send failed for subscriber on %s", channel, exc_info=True)
 
 
 def _channel_or_close_code(ws: WebSocket) -> Optional[str]:
diff --git a/tests/hermes_cli/test_web_server.py b/tests/hermes_cli/test_web_server.py
index f5c06205621..d3143a4092a 100644
--- a/tests/hermes_cli/test_web_server.py
+++ b/tests/hermes_cli/test_web_server.py
@@ -2325,7 +2325,34 @@ class TestPtyWebSocket:
 
             with self.client.websocket_connect(pub_path) as pub:
                 pub.send_text('{"type":"tool.start","payload":{"tool_id":"t1"}}')
-                received = sub.receive_text()
+                # Yield control so the server-side broadcast handler can
+                # process the frame.  TestClient runs the ASGI app in a
+                # background thread; a small sleep gives that thread time
+                # to call _broadcast_event before we start blocking on
+                # receive_text().  Without this, under heavy CI load the
+                # receive can race the broadcast and hang until
+                # pytest-timeout kills us.
+                import queue, threading
+                recv_q: queue.Queue = queue.Queue()
+
+                def _recv():
+                    try:
+                        recv_q.put(sub.receive_text())
+                    except Exception as exc:
+                        recv_q.put(exc)
+
+                t = threading.Thread(target=_recv, daemon=True)
+                t.start()
+                try:
+                    received = recv_q.get(timeout=10.0)
+                except queue.Empty:
+                    raise AssertionError(
+                        "broadcast not received within 10s — server likely "
+                        "dropped the frame silently (see _broadcast_event "
+                        "except Exception: pass)"
+                    )
+                if isinstance(received, Exception):
+                    raise received
 
         assert "tool.start" in received
         assert '"tool_id":"t1"' in received
diff --git a/tests/tools/test_browser_secret_exfil.py b/tests/tools/test_browser_secret_exfil.py
index 893fb11fe74..82fa7e490e1 100644
--- a/tests/tools/test_browser_secret_exfil.py
+++ b/tests/tools/test_browser_secret_exfil.py
@@ -31,7 +31,13 @@ class TestBrowserSecretExfil:
     def test_allows_normal_url(self):
         """Normal URLs pass the secret check (may fail for other reasons)."""
         from tools.browser_tool import browser_navigate
-        result = browser_navigate("https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent")
+        # Patch the actual browser command — we only care that the secret
+        # check doesn't block a clean URL, not that Chrome starts in CI.
+        mock_result = {"success": True, "data": {"title": "ok", "url": "https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent"}}
+        with patch("tools.browser_tool._run_browser_command", return_value=mock_result), \
+             patch("tools.browser_tool._get_session_info", return_value={"_first_nav": False}), \
+             patch("tools.browser_tool._is_local_backend", return_value=True):
+            result = browser_navigate("https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent")
         parsed = json.loads(result)
         # Should NOT be blocked by secret detection
         assert "API key or token" not in parsed.get("error", "")