diff --git a/.github/workflows/controller-tests.yml b/.github/workflows/controller-tests.yml
index 21739c62..37c5c7c4 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/controller-tests.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/controller-tests.yml
@@ -1,10 +1,13 @@
 name: Controller Tests
 
+# `pull_request` is unfiltered for the same reason as jest-tests.yml: `branches: [master]` meant
+# this never ran on a pull request into any other branch.  It is why Controller Tests is absent
+# from the checks on the pull request that moved this job to Python 3.13 -- the change to this
+# file could not be verified by the run that contained it.
 on:
   push:
     branches: [master, feature/*]
   pull_request:
-    branches: [master]
 
 jobs:
   controller-tests:
diff --git a/pytest.ini b/pytest.ini
index aa680dee..2cfb2250 100644
--- a/pytest.ini
+++ b/pytest.ini
@@ -4,6 +4,19 @@ testpaths =
     wrolpi
     modules
 asyncio_default_fixture_loop_scope = function
-# Do not remove timeout - tests should not run forever
-timeout = 30
+# Do not remove timeout - tests should not run forever.
+#
+# This is a hang detector, not a performance budget.  It was 30s, but the plugin was never
+# declared in requirements.txt, so CI installed without it and the limit had never actually been
+# applied there.  The first run that enforced it failed sixteen tests, every one of them at
+# 30.0s and none of them hung: CircleCI's 4 vCPU box runs this suite in roughly twice the
+# wall-clock of a dev machine, and a cluster of refresh/worker tests sits at 28-30s there --
+# test_get_refresh_progress passed at 29.9s and test_create_playlist at 29.8s, which is luck
+# rather than headroom.
+#
+# 120s is about four times the slowest legitimate test observed on CI, so it still catches a
+# genuine hang long before CircleCI kills the job, while leaving slow-but-working tests alone.
+# Raise it if CI grows slower; a named timeout failure is the point, and a limit tight enough to
+# fire on healthy tests just trades one unreliable signal for another.
+timeout = 120
 timeout_method = signal