diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
index 48b6624..5255d07 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -44,13 +44,14 @@ jobs:
 
       - name: Install system dependencies
         run: |
-          sudo apt-get update
+          APT_OPTS=(-o Acquire::Retries=5 -o Acquire::http::Timeout=30 -o Acquire::https::Timeout=30)
+          sudo apt-get "${APT_OPTS[@]}" update --error-on=any
           # NOTE: do NOT use --no-install-recommends for libclang-dev — on
           # Debian Bookworm (the node:20-bookworm image used by act_runner
           # under ubuntu-latest) the recommended toolchain bits are needed
           # by bindgen. The pkg-config based deps (pipewire/wayland/etc)
           # are also more reliable without the flag.
-          sudo apt-get install -y \
+          sudo apt-get "${APT_OPTS[@]}" install -y \
             ffmpeg \
             libavcodec-dev libavfilter-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libswscale-dev libva-dev \
             libwayland-dev wayland-protocols \