diff --git a/backend/go/crispasr/gocrispasr.go b/backend/go/crispasr/gocrispasr.go
index 1fd64b08e943..be431165dd82 100644
--- a/backend/go/crispasr/gocrispasr.go
+++ b/backend/go/crispasr/gocrispasr.go
@@ -67,7 +67,16 @@ const defaultTTSSampleRate = 24000
 // resampling, so the WAV header must match it. Returns ok=false for non-piper
 // models (key absent) or an unreadable file, letting the caller fall back to
 // defaultTTSSampleRate.
-func piperSampleRate(modelPath string) (int, bool) {
+func piperSampleRate(modelPath string) (rate int, ok bool) {
+	// A malformed metadata length can make gguf-parser-go panic before it can
+	// return an error. Keep a bad voice file from crash-looping the backend.
+	defer func() {
+		if recover() != nil {
+			rate = 0
+			ok = false
+		}
+	}()
+
 	// Only scalar architecture keys are read, so skip the large array metadata
 	// (phoneme map) and mmap the header - same rationale as pkg/vram's reader.
 	f, err := gguf.ParseGGUFFile(modelPath, gguf.UseMMap(), gguf.SkipLargeMetadata())
@@ -78,7 +87,7 @@ func piperSampleRate(modelPath string) (int, bool) {
 	if !ok || kv.ValueType != gguf.GGUFMetadataValueTypeUint32 {
 		return 0, false
 	}
-	rate := int(kv.ValueUint32())
+	rate = int(kv.ValueUint32())
 	if rate <= 0 {
 		return 0, false
 	}
diff --git a/backend/go/crispasr/gocrispasr_samplerate_test.go b/backend/go/crispasr/gocrispasr_samplerate_test.go
index 6b0cf726b5fd..c36e7a75a284 100644
--- a/backend/go/crispasr/gocrispasr_samplerate_test.go
+++ b/backend/go/crispasr/gocrispasr_samplerate_test.go
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ package main
 import (
 	"bytes"
 	"encoding/binary"
+	"math"
 	"os"
 	"path/filepath"
 
@@ -102,6 +103,24 @@ var _ = Describe("piper sample rate", func() {
 			_, ok := piperSampleRate(p)
 			Expect(ok).To(BeFalse())
 		})
+
+		It("returns ok=false instead of panicking on a malformed string length", func() {
+			p := filepath.Join(GinkgoT().TempDir(), "malformed.gguf")
+			var b bytes.Buffer
+			b.WriteString("GGUF")
+			Expect(binary.Write(&b, binary.LittleEndian, uint32(3))).To(Succeed())
+			Expect(binary.Write(&b, binary.LittleEndian, uint64(0))).To(Succeed())
+			Expect(binary.Write(&b, binary.LittleEndian, uint64(1))).To(Succeed())
+			key := "general.name"
+			Expect(binary.Write(&b, binary.LittleEndian, uint64(len(key)))).To(Succeed())
+			b.WriteString(key)
+			Expect(binary.Write(&b, binary.LittleEndian, ggufTypeString)).To(Succeed())
+			Expect(binary.Write(&b, binary.LittleEndian, uint64(math.MaxInt64))).To(Succeed())
+			Expect(os.WriteFile(p, b.Bytes(), 0o644)).To(Succeed())
+
+			_, ok := piperSampleRate(p)
+			Expect(ok).To(BeFalse())
+		})
 	})
 
 	// End-to-end through the built .so. Gated on CRISPASR_PIPER_MODEL_PATH (a
diff --git a/core/gallery/estimate_warm.go b/core/gallery/estimate_warm.go
index 680ebcdbb0ad..4b291cd589d4 100644
--- a/core/gallery/estimate_warm.go
+++ b/core/gallery/estimate_warm.go
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ import (
 	"time"
 
 	"github.com/mudler/LocalAI/core/config"
+	"github.com/mudler/LocalAI/pkg/concurrency"
 	"github.com/mudler/LocalAI/pkg/system"
 	"github.com/mudler/LocalAI/pkg/vram"
 	"github.com/mudler/xlog"
@@ -101,7 +102,7 @@ func WarmEstimateCache(ctx context.Context, galleries []config.Gallery, systemSt
 		return
 	}
 
-	go func() {
+	concurrency.SafeGo(func() {
 		started := time.Now()
 
 		models, err := AvailableGalleryModelsCached(galleries, systemState)
@@ -131,7 +132,7 @@ func WarmEstimateCache(ctx context.Context, galleries []config.Gallery, systemSt
 
 		for i := 0; i < cfg.Concurrency; i++ {
 			wg.Add(1)
-			go func() {
+			concurrency.SafeGo(func() {
 				defer wg.Done()
 				for m := range cursor {
 					// Per entry, not for the run: one unreachable weight file
@@ -164,7 +165,7 @@ func WarmEstimateCache(ctx context.Context, galleries []config.Gallery, systemSt
 
 					cancel()
 				}
-			}()
+			})
 		}
 
 	feed:
@@ -183,7 +184,7 @@ func WarmEstimateCache(ctx context.Context, galleries []config.Gallery, systemSt
 			return
 		}
 		xlog.Info("gallery caches warmed", "estimates", warmed, "variants", warmedVariants, "of", len(models), "took", time.Since(started).Round(time.Second))
-	}()
+	})
 }
 
 // EstimateWarmConfigFromEnv reads the warm-up bounds from the environment,
diff --git a/core/gallery/estimate_warm_test.go b/core/gallery/estimate_warm_test.go
index 7f75bb412ff1..e247f4bfce36 100644
--- a/core/gallery/estimate_warm_test.go
+++ b/core/gallery/estimate_warm_test.go
@@ -1,11 +1,20 @@
 package gallery_test
 
 import (
+	"bytes"
 	"context"
+	"encoding/binary"
+	"math"
+	"net/http"
+	"net/http/httptest"
 	"os"
+	"path/filepath"
+	"time"
 
+	gguf "github.com/gpustack/gguf-parser-go"
 	. "github.com/onsi/ginkgo/v2"
 	. "github.com/onsi/gomega"
+	"gopkg.in/yaml.v3"
 
 	"github.com/mudler/LocalAI/core/config"
 	"github.com/mudler/LocalAI/core/gallery"
@@ -57,6 +66,46 @@ var _ = Describe("VRAM estimate warm-up", func() {
 		Consistently(func() bool { return true }, "100ms").Should(BeTrue())
 	})
 
+	It("does not crash the server when remote GGUF metadata is malformed", func() {
+		payload := warmMalformedGGUF()
+		requested := make(chan struct{})
+		server := httptest.NewServer(http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
+			select {
+			case <-requested:
+			default:
+				close(requested)
+			}
+			http.ServeContent(w, r, "model.gguf", time.Time{}, bytes.NewReader(payload))
+		}))
+		DeferCleanup(server.Close)
+
+		galleryPath := filepath.Join(state.Model.ModelsPath, "malformed-gallery.yaml")
+		index, err := yaml.Marshal([]gallery.GalleryModel{{Metadata: gallery.Metadata{
+			Name: "malformed-gguf",
+			AdditionalFiles: []gallery.File{{
+				Filename: "model.gguf",
+				URI:      server.URL + "/model.gguf",
+			}},
+		}}})
+		Expect(err).NotTo(HaveOccurred())
+		Expect(os.WriteFile(galleryPath, index, 0600)).To(Succeed())
+
+		cfg := gallery.DefaultEstimateWarmConfig
+		cfg.Limit = 1
+		cfg.Concurrency = 1
+		cfg.Contexts = []uint32{8192}
+		gallery.WarmEstimateCache(context.Background(), []config.Gallery{{
+			Name: "malformed",
+			URL:  "file://" + galleryPath,
+		}}, state, cfg)
+
+		Eventually(requested, "2s").Should(BeClosed())
+		// The warm-up is detached. Give its parser time to consume the response;
+		// before the recovery boundary, that goroutine panicked and killed the
+		// entire test process (and the LocalAI server in production).
+		Consistently(func() bool { return true }, "300ms").Should(BeTrue())
+	})
+
 	Describe("configuration from the environment", func() {
 		AfterEach(func() {
 			os.Unsetenv("LOCALAI_VRAM_WARM_LIMIT")
@@ -113,3 +162,19 @@ var _ = Describe("VRAM estimate warm-up", func() {
 	})
 
 })
+
+func warmMalformedGGUF() []byte {
+	payload := make([]byte, 0, 128)
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFMagicGGUFLe))
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFVersionV3))
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, 0)
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, 1)
+	key := "tokenizer.ggml.tokens"
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, uint64(len(key)))
+	payload = append(payload, key...)
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFMetadataValueTypeArray))
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFMetadataValueTypeString))
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, 1)
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, math.MaxUint64)
+	return payload
+}
diff --git a/core/gallery/importers/llama-cpp.go b/core/gallery/importers/llama-cpp.go
index 0804ce34f904..923437c89062 100644
--- a/core/gallery/importers/llama-cpp.go
+++ b/core/gallery/importers/llama-cpp.go
@@ -401,7 +401,10 @@ func maybeApplyMTPDefaults(modelConfig *config.ModelConfig, details Details, cfg
 		}
 	}()
 
-	f, err := gguf.ParseGGUFFileRemote(ctx, probeURL)
+	// MTP markers are architecture scalars. Avoid allocating tokenizer and
+	// other large arrays from an untrusted remote header; panic recovery cannot
+	// contain a fatal out-of-memory condition.
+	f, err := gguf.ParseGGUFFileRemote(ctx, probeURL, gguf.SkipLargeMetadata())
 	if err != nil {
 		xlog.Debug("[mtp-importer] failed to read remote GGUF header for MTP detection", "uri", probeURL, "error", err)
 		return
diff --git a/docker-compose.distributed.yaml b/docker-compose.distributed.yaml
index 9971b57c3fcf..3387e313415b 100644
--- a/docker-compose.distributed.yaml
+++ b/docker-compose.distributed.yaml
@@ -74,6 +74,9 @@ services:
       GODEBUG: "netdns=go"
       # Paths
       MODELS_PATH: /models
+      # Avoid probing remote gallery GGUF metadata during container startup.
+      # Remove this line or set a positive limit to opt back into cache warming.
+      LOCALAI_VRAM_WARM_LIMIT: "0"
     volumes:
       - frontend_models:/models
       - frontend_data:/data
diff --git a/docker-compose.yaml b/docker-compose.yaml
index a432a699a3d0..ee137e83c4f9 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yaml
+++ b/docker-compose.yaml
@@ -18,6 +18,9 @@ services:
       - .env
     environment:
       - MODELS_PATH=/models
+      # Avoid probing remote gallery GGUF metadata during container startup.
+      # Remove this line or set a positive limit to opt back into cache warming.
+      - LOCALAI_VRAM_WARM_LIMIT=0
     #  - DEBUG=true
     ## Agents (LocalAGI) - https://localai.io/features/agents/
     #  - LOCALAI_DISABLE_AGENTS=false
diff --git a/docs/content/advanced/vram-management.md b/docs/content/advanced/vram-management.md
index dda39ba07409..229d39f9f4a9 100644
--- a/docs/content/advanced/vram-management.md
+++ b/docs/content/advanced/vram-management.md
@@ -477,6 +477,11 @@ then on.
 | `LOCALAI_VRAM_WARM_LIMIT` | `300` | How many gallery entries to warm at startup, estimates and variants alike. Set to `0` to disable the warm-up entirely. |
 | `LOCALAI_VRAM_WARM_CONCURRENCY` | `4` | How many estimates to run at once. |
 
+The provided Docker Compose configurations set `LOCALAI_VRAM_WARM_LIMIT=0`
+as a defensive default, so container startup does not probe remote GGUF files.
+Remove that override or set it to a positive number to opt into background
+warming.
+
 ```bash
 # Air-gapped, or you would rather not make the requests at all
 LOCALAI_VRAM_WARM_LIMIT=0 local-ai run
diff --git a/go.mod b/go.mod
index eced8c0916cb..0daf7f61201a 100644
--- a/go.mod
+++ b/go.mod
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ require (
 	github.com/gofrs/flock v0.13.0
 	github.com/google/go-containerregistry v0.21.6
 	github.com/google/uuid v1.6.0
-	github.com/gpustack/gguf-parser-go v0.24.0
+	github.com/gpustack/gguf-parser-go v0.25.0
 	github.com/hpcloud/tail v1.0.0
 	github.com/ipfs/go-log v1.0.5
 	github.com/jaypipes/ghw v0.24.0
diff --git a/go.sum b/go.sum
index 61ccede93c39..f582b871d22f 100644
--- a/go.sum
+++ b/go.sum
@@ -666,8 +666,8 @@ github.com/gorilla/css v1.0.1/go.mod h1:BvnYkspnSzMmwRK+b8/xgNPLiIuNZr6vbZBTPQ2A
 github.com/gorilla/websocket v1.4.2/go.mod h1:YR8l580nyteQvAITg2hZ9XVh4b55+EU/adAjf1fMHhE=
 github.com/gorilla/websocket v1.5.4-0.20250319132907-e064f32e3674 h1:JeSE6pjso5THxAzdVpqr6/geYxZytqFMBCOtn/ujyeo=
 github.com/gorilla/websocket v1.5.4-0.20250319132907-e064f32e3674/go.mod h1:r4w70xmWCQKmi1ONH4KIaBptdivuRPyosB9RmPlGEwA=
-github.com/gpustack/gguf-parser-go v0.24.0 h1:tdJceXYp9e5RhE9RwVYIuUpir72Jz2D68NEtDXkKCKc=
-github.com/gpustack/gguf-parser-go v0.24.0/go.mod h1:y4TwTtDqFWTK+xvprOjRUh+dowgU2TKCX37vRKvGiZ0=
+github.com/gpustack/gguf-parser-go v0.25.0 h1:1AMBhMKtI24nTtn588Bq53FqNiOvEw1x9Nb4HbRrThs=
+github.com/gpustack/gguf-parser-go v0.25.0/go.mod h1:y4TwTtDqFWTK+xvprOjRUh+dowgU2TKCX37vRKvGiZ0=
 github.com/grpc-ecosystem/go-grpc-middleware v1.4.0 h1:UH//fgunKIs4JdUbpDl1VZCDaL56wXCB/5+wF6uHfaI=
 github.com/grpc-ecosystem/go-grpc-middleware v1.4.0/go.mod h1:g5qyo/la0ALbONm6Vbp88Yd8NsDy6rZz+RcrMPxvld8=
 github.com/grpc-ecosystem/grpc-gateway v1.16.0/go.mod h1:BDjrQk3hbvj6Nolgz8mAMFbcEtjT1g+wF4CSlocrBnw=
diff --git a/pkg/vram/gguf_reader.go b/pkg/vram/gguf_reader.go
index f2842ba83c2b..9e224d110cf5 100644
--- a/pkg/vram/gguf_reader.go
+++ b/pkg/vram/gguf_reader.go
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ package vram
 
 import (
 	"context"
+	"fmt"
 	"strings"
 
 	gguf "github.com/gpustack/gguf-parser-go"
@@ -10,7 +11,18 @@ import (
 
 type defaultGGUFReader struct{}
 
-func (defaultGGUFReader) ReadMetadata(ctx context.Context, uri string) (*GGUFMeta, error) {
+func (defaultGGUFReader) ReadMetadata(ctx context.Context, uri string) (meta *GGUFMeta, err error) {
+	// gguf-parser-go parses lengths supplied by the file and has historically
+	// panicked on values that cannot fit in a Go slice. Metadata can come from
+	// an untrusted remote host, and this reader is also used by a background
+	// gallery worker, where an escaped panic would terminate the whole server.
+	defer func() {
+		if recovered := recover(); recovered != nil {
+			meta = nil
+			err = fmt.Errorf("read GGUF metadata: parser panic: %v", recovered)
+		}
+	}()
+
 	u := downloader.URI(uri)
 	urlStr := u.ResolveURL()
 
@@ -28,7 +40,10 @@ func (defaultGGUFReader) ReadMetadata(ctx context.Context, uri string) (*GGUFMet
 	if !u.LooksLikeHTTPURL() {
 		return nil, nil
 	}
-	f, err := gguf.ParseGGUFFileRemote(ctx, urlStr)
+	// The estimator only consumes architecture scalars. Tokenizer arrays can
+	// be very large and are unnecessary here, so avoid downloading or
+	// allocating them for remote files just as the local path does above.
+	f, err := gguf.ParseGGUFFileRemote(ctx, urlStr, gguf.SkipLargeMetadata())
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, err
 	}
diff --git a/pkg/vram/gguf_reader_test.go b/pkg/vram/gguf_reader_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..f1cd4a21eb14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkg/vram/gguf_reader_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+package vram_test
+
+import (
+	"bytes"
+	"context"
+	"encoding/binary"
+	"math"
+	"net/http"
+	"net/http/httptest"
+	"time"
+
+	gguf "github.com/gpustack/gguf-parser-go"
+	"github.com/mudler/LocalAI/pkg/vram"
+	. "github.com/onsi/ginkgo/v2"
+	. "github.com/onsi/gomega"
+)
+
+var _ = Describe("DefaultGGUFReader", func() {
+	It("reads architecture scalars from a valid remote GGUF", func() {
+		server := serveGGUF(validRemoteGGUF())
+
+		meta, err := vram.DefaultGGUFReader().ReadMetadata(context.Background(), server.URL+"/model.gguf")
+
+		Expect(err).NotTo(HaveOccurred())
+		Expect(meta).To(Equal(&vram.GGUFMeta{
+			BlockCount:           32,
+			EmbeddingLength:      4096,
+			HeadCount:            32,
+			HeadCountKV:          8,
+			MaximumContextLength: 8192,
+		}))
+	})
+
+	It("rejects an overflowing tokenizer array without allocating it", func() {
+		server := serveGGUF(malformedGGUFArray(math.MaxUint64))
+
+		_, err := vram.DefaultGGUFReader().ReadMetadata(context.Background(), server.URL+"/model.gguf")
+
+		Expect(err).To(HaveOccurred())
+		Expect(err.Error()).NotTo(ContainSubstring("parser panic"),
+			"large tokenizer metadata should be skipped with a bounds error")
+	})
+
+	It("converts a parser panic from malformed string metadata to an error", func() {
+		server := serveGGUF(malformedGGUFString(uint64(math.MaxInt64)))
+
+		_, err := vram.DefaultGGUFReader().ReadMetadata(context.Background(), server.URL+"/model.gguf")
+
+		Expect(err).To(HaveOccurred())
+		Expect(err.Error()).To(ContainSubstring("parser panic"))
+	})
+})
+
+func serveGGUF(payload []byte) *httptest.Server {
+	server := httptest.NewServer(http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
+		http.ServeContent(w, r, "model.gguf", time.Time{}, bytes.NewReader(payload))
+	}))
+	DeferCleanup(server.Close)
+	return server
+}
+
+func malformedGGUFString(length uint64) []byte {
+	payload := ggufHeader(1)
+	payload = appendGGUFString(payload, "general.name")
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFMetadataValueTypeString))
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, length)
+	return payload
+}
+
+func validRemoteGGUF() []byte {
+	payload := ggufHeader(6)
+	payload = appendGGUFStringValue(payload, "general.architecture", "llama")
+	payload = appendGGUFUint32(payload, "llama.block_count", 32)
+	payload = appendGGUFUint32(payload, "llama.embedding_length", 4096)
+	payload = appendGGUFUint32(payload, "llama.attention.head_count", 32)
+	payload = appendGGUFUint32(payload, "llama.attention.head_count_kv", 8)
+	payload = appendGGUFUint32(payload, "llama.context_length", 8192)
+	return payload
+}
+
+func malformedGGUFArray(itemLength uint64) []byte {
+	payload := ggufHeader(1)
+	payload = appendGGUFString(payload, "tokenizer.ggml.tokens")
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFMetadataValueTypeArray))
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFMetadataValueTypeString))
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, 1)
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, itemLength)
+	return payload
+}
+
+func ggufHeader(metadataCount uint64) []byte {
+	payload := make([]byte, 0, 128)
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFMagicGGUFLe))
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFVersionV3))
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, 0)
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, metadataCount)
+	return payload
+}
+
+func appendGGUFString(payload []byte, value string) []byte {
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint64(payload, uint64(len(value)))
+	return append(payload, value...)
+}
+
+func appendGGUFStringValue(payload []byte, key, value string) []byte {
+	payload = appendGGUFString(payload, key)
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFMetadataValueTypeString))
+	return appendGGUFString(payload, value)
+}
+
+func appendGGUFUint32(payload []byte, key string, value uint32) []byte {
+	payload = appendGGUFString(payload, key)
+	payload = binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, uint32(gguf.GGUFMetadataValueTypeUint32))
+	return binary.LittleEndian.AppendUint32(payload, value)
+}