diff --git a/apps/backend/internal/orchestrator/ci_automation_attempt.go b/apps/backend/internal/orchestrator/ci_automation_attempt.go
index d3b150c69fa..b4b0c1cec66 100644
--- a/apps/backend/internal/orchestrator/ci_automation_attempt.go
+++ b/apps/backend/internal/orchestrator/ci_automation_attempt.go
@@ -103,10 +103,10 @@ func (s *Service) reconcileOrphanedCIAutoFixQueueEntries(
 				continue
 			}
 		}
-		if ackErr := s.messageQueue.AcknowledgeQueued(
-			context.WithoutCancel(ctx), &entry,
-		); ackErr != nil {
-			return fmt.Errorf("remove orphaned CI auto-fix queue entry %q: %w", entry.ID, ackErr)
+		if removeErr := s.messageQueue.RemoveEntry(
+			context.WithoutCancel(ctx), entry.SessionID, entry.ID,
+		); removeErr != nil && !errors.Is(removeErr, messagequeue.ErrEntryNotFound) {
+			return fmt.Errorf("remove orphaned CI auto-fix queue entry %q: %w", entry.ID, removeErr)
 		}
 	}
 	return nil
diff --git a/apps/backend/internal/task/repository/sqlite/session.go b/apps/backend/internal/task/repository/sqlite/session.go
index cdbd6823128..92a75e81694 100644
--- a/apps/backend/internal/task/repository/sqlite/session.go
+++ b/apps/backend/internal/task/repository/sqlite/session.go
@@ -2920,14 +2920,7 @@ func unmarshalSessionSnapshots(
 // in this task transaction. Some repository unit tests intentionally omit the
 // message queue schema; production databases always include it.
 func (r *Repository) queueSessionLockTablePresent(ctx context.Context) (bool, error) {
-	var present bool
-	var err error
-	if dialect.IsPostgres(r.db.DriverName()) {
-		err = r.db.GetContext(ctx, &present, `SELECT to_regclass('queue_session_locks') IS NOT NULL`)
-	} else {
-		err = r.db.GetContext(ctx, &present, `SELECT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM sqlite_master WHERE type = 'table' AND name = 'queue_session_locks')`)
-	}
-	return present, err
+	return db.TableExistsContext(ctx, r.db, "queue_session_locks")
 }
 
 // DeleteTaskSession deletes the exact session incarnation and its pending queue