diff --git a/src/bin/reembed_embeddings.rs b/src/bin/reembed_embeddings.rs
index ba2a4f0..94c8d63 100644
--- a/src/bin/reembed_embeddings.rs
+++ b/src/bin/reembed_embeddings.rs
@@ -286,6 +286,13 @@ async fn main() -> Result<()> {
 
     let mut conn = SqliteConnection::establish(&database_url)
         .with_context(|| format!("connecting to {}", database_url))?;
+    // Run beside the live server: its watcher writes the same file, and
+    // without a busy timeout one contended UPDATE fails the whole run.
+    {
+        use diesel::connection::SimpleConnection;
+        conn.batch_execute("PRAGMA busy_timeout = 15000;")
+            .context("setting busy_timeout")?;
+    }
 
     // This tool exists to move the corpus to the configured contract, so it
     // embeds even while the stored one differs (#189).