diff --git a/.gitea/workflows/index-artifact.yml b/.gitea/workflows/index-artifact.yml
index 4ae894c..b28ccd2 100644
--- a/.gitea/workflows/index-artifact.yml
+++ b/.gitea/workflows/index-artifact.yml
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ jobs:
       # claim with a test behind it now (cmd/indexbuild/deps_test.go),
       # because the v3 migration quietly broke it and this job was where
       # that surfaced.
-      image: golang:1.25
+      image: golang:1.26
       # This host path must exist on the runner and be listed verbatim in
       # act_runner's container.valid_volumes. It holds explore-staging/
       # (counts.bin + state.json) and yj.db — the checkpoint that makes
@@ -148,6 +148,49 @@ jobs:
           sha256sum /tmp/core-index.db.zst | tee /tmp/core-index.db.zst.sha256
           ls -lh /tmp/core-index.db.zst
 
+      # Nothing is published until it has been imported by the code that
+      # imports it on a user's machine. The exporter and the importer are
+      # two descriptions of one storage format, and every other tier tests
+      # the importer against a *fixture* rather than against the file being
+      # shipped — a second description free to be wrong in the same
+      # direction as the code reading it.
+      #
+      # That is how #258 reached everyone: the importer positioned its batch
+      # walk with a Go `string` cursor against this file's 16-byte `mbid`
+      # column, and SQLite neither coerces between TEXT and BLOB nor
+      # complains about the comparison — so the walk merged no rows and
+      # never advanced, and no install could finish its first index build.
+      # The fixture guarding that walk writes the old text encoding, and the
+      # only compact fixture is one row, below the batch size, so the bound
+      # query never ran. Both were green throughout.
+      #
+      # Running it here is also what keeps the failure cheap: the previous
+      # artifact stays published while this runs, so a failure costs one
+      # stale catalog rather than an empty one for every install.
+      #
+      # `-tags indexbuild` because this container has no GTK and the default
+      # tag set links the app through Wails. The `--- PASS` grep is not
+      # decoration — the test skips without the path, and a skip is
+      # indistinguishable from a pass in a summary line.
+      - name: Import the exported artifact as a client does
+        if: steps.maintain.outputs.complete == 'true' && steps.maintain.outputs.changed == 'true'
+        working-directory: /src
+        env:
+          YJ_CORE_INDEX_ARTIFACT: /tmp/core-index.db.zst
+        run: |
+          set -eu
+          log=/tmp/import-check.log
+          if ! go test -tags indexbuild -count=1 -timeout 30m -v \
+            -run TestImportPublishedArtifact ./backend/explore/ > "$log" 2>&1;
+          then
+            tail -60 "$log"
+            echo "::error::The artifact does not import; not publishing it."
+            exit 1
+          fi
+          cat "$log"
+          grep -qF -- 'PASS: TestImportPublishedArtifact' "$log"
+          echo "::notice::The artifact imports as a client would merge it."
+
       - name: Publish to the Gitea package registry
         if: steps.maintain.outputs.complete == 'true' && steps.maintain.outputs.changed == 'true'
         run: |
diff --git a/backend/explore/publishedartifact_test.go b/backend/explore/publishedartifact_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3501e75
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend/explore/publishedartifact_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,266 @@
+package explore
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	"database/sql"
+	"io"
+	"os"
+	"path/filepath"
+	"strings"
+	"testing"
+
+	"yellowjacket/backend/database"
+)
+
+// Import of the artifact we actually publish, as a client imports it.
+//
+// Every other test here builds a fixture, and a fixture is a second
+// description of the storage format that can be wrong in the same
+// direction as the code reading it.  That is how #258 shipped: the
+// importer positioned its batch walk with a Go `string` cursor against
+// the artifact's 16-byte `mbid` column, and SQLite neither coerces
+// between TEXT and BLOB nor complains about the comparison — so the walk
+// merged nothing and never advanced, and no install could finish its
+// first index build.  The fixture that guards the walk writes the old
+// text encoding; the only compact fixture is one row, below the batch
+// size, so the bound query never ran.  Both passed throughout.
+//
+// So this one takes the published file and runs the client's own path
+// over it — checksum, decompress, merge — and asserts that what the
+// artifact holds is what the client ends up with.
+//
+// It skips without the path, so an ordinary test run pays nothing for
+// it, and the publish job is where it is meant to run:
+//
+//	YJ_CORE_INDEX_ARTIFACT=/tmp/core-index.db.zst \
+//	  go test -tags indexbuild -run TestImportPublishedArtifact \
+//	  ./backend/explore/
+//
+// The indexbuild tag is not incidental: that job's container has no GTK,
+// and the default tag set links the app through Wails.
+
+// publishedArtifactEnv points at the published artifact: the compressed
+// core-index.db.zst, or the unpacked core-index.db.
+const publishedArtifactEnv = "YJ_CORE_INDEX_ARTIFACT"
+
+// artifactTotals is the pair this test compares across the boundary.
+//
+// Rows is the whole point — a merge that lands fewer of them than the
+// artifact declares is a catalog that looks populated and is missing
+// things nobody can name — and popularity is the half whose absence was
+// reported when it happened, because it arrives only through the merge.
+type artifactTotals struct {
+	rows       int
+	withListen int
+}
+
+func TestImportPublishedArtifact(t *testing.T) {
+	published := strings.TrimSpace(os.Getenv(publishedArtifactEnv))
+	if published == "" {
+		t.Skipf("set %s=<core-index.db.zst> to import the published artifact",
+			publishedArtifactEnv)
+	}
+
+	if _, err := os.Stat(published); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("%s: %v", publishedArtifactEnv, err)
+	}
+
+	// A file-backed database rather than NewTestDB's in-memory one: the
+	// artifact is ~135MB and a million rows, which is not a thing to hold
+	// in RAM inside a test.  YJ_HOME is how NewDB is pointed somewhere
+	// disposable, and going through NewDB means this is the constructor,
+	// the schema and the read pool the app itself opens.
+	//
+	// Nothing closes it, because nothing can: `DB` has no Close and the
+	// app's handles are process-lifetime by design.  The directory is
+	// unlinked at cleanup and the file goes with it.
+	t.Setenv("YJ_HOME", t.TempDir())
+
+	db, err := database.NewDB(testLogger())
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("open database: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	si := NewSearchIndex(db, nil, nil, testLogger())
+
+	// The checksum the publisher shipped, if it shipped one.  Every
+	// client verifies it and refuses the artifact when it does not
+	// match, so a wrong one breaks Explore for everyone who has not
+	// already imported — and nothing else would see it, because the
+	// comparison is between two files only the publisher has.
+	if want, ok := publishedChecksum(published); ok {
+		got, err := fileSHA256(published)
+		if err != nil {
+			t.Fatalf("checksum the artifact: %v", err)
+		}
+
+		if got != want {
+			t.Errorf("published artifact hashes to %s, but its .sha256 says %s",
+				got, want)
+		}
+	}
+
+	unpacked := unpackPublishedArtifact(t, si, published)
+
+	want, err := artifactTotalsOf(unpacked)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("count the artifact's rows: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	if err := si.importCoreArtifact(context.Background(), unpacked); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("importCoreArtifact: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	got, err := indexTotalsOf(db)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("count the index's rows: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	if got.rows != want.rows {
+		t.Errorf("merged %d rows, but the artifact holds %d",
+			got.rows, want.rows)
+	}
+
+	if got.withListen != want.withListen {
+		t.Errorf("%d rows carry a listen count, but the artifact holds %d of them",
+			got.withListen, want.withListen)
+	}
+
+	// The FTS index is rebuilt from the table once the merge is done, and
+	// it is what search actually reads: a merge that lands without it
+	// leaves Explore silently matching nothing, which is the state #258
+	// produced by a different route.
+	var indexed int
+	if err := db.QueryRowWriter(
+		"SELECT COUNT(*) FROM explore_index_fts",
+	).Scan(&indexed); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("count the FTS index: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	if indexed != got.rows {
+		t.Errorf("FTS index holds %d rows against the table's %d",
+			indexed, got.rows)
+	}
+
+	// And one row read back through the app's own path, which is the
+	// other direction of every conversion the merge makes: a byte MBID
+	// out of the table, the app's dashed form, and back in as a lookup.
+	var raw []byte
+	if err := db.QueryRowWriter(`
+		SELECT mbid FROM explore_index
+		WHERE entity_type = 1 /* artist */ AND popularity > 0
+		ORDER BY popularity DESC LIMIT 1`).Scan(&raw); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("read a stored mbid: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	dashed, err := mbidFromBytes(raw)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("the stored mbid is not one: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	artist := si.LookupArtistByMBID(dashed)
+	if artist == nil {
+		t.Fatalf("the artifact's most popular artist %s does not look up", dashed)
+	}
+
+	if artist.Popularity == 0 {
+		t.Errorf("artist %s came back with no popularity", dashed)
+	}
+}
+
+// publishedChecksum reads the sha256 the publisher wrote beside the
+// artifact, in `sha256sum` output form.  A missing file is not a
+// failure: it is only there when the artifact came from the publish job.
+func publishedChecksum(path string) (string, bool) {
+	body, err := os.ReadFile(path + ".sha256")
+	if err != nil {
+		return "", false
+	}
+
+	sum := strings.TrimSpace(string(body))
+	if i := strings.IndexAny(sum, " \t"); i > 0 {
+		sum = sum[:i]
+	}
+
+	if len(sum) != 64 {
+		return "", false
+	}
+
+	return strings.ToLower(sum), true
+}
+
+// unpackPublishedArtifact returns a path to the unpacked database,
+// going through the client's own decompression when it is handed the
+// compressed file that is actually published.
+func unpackPublishedArtifact(t *testing.T, si *SearchIndex, path string) string {
+	t.Helper()
+
+	if strings.HasSuffix(path, ".db") {
+		return path
+	}
+
+	// Copied into the test's own directory first: decompress writes
+	// beside the compressed file, and the publisher's directory is not
+	// this test's to write in.
+	staging := t.TempDir()
+	dst := filepath.Join(staging, coreArtifactFile)
+
+	src, err := os.Open(path)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("open the published artifact: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	defer func() { _ = src.Close() }()
+
+	out, err := os.Create(dst)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("create a staging copy: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	if _, err := io.Copy(out, src); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("copy the published artifact: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	if err := out.Close(); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("close the staging copy: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	fetcher := &artifactFetcher{si: si, stagingDir: staging}
+
+	if err := fetcher.decompress(context.Background()); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("decompress the published artifact: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	return fetcher.unpackedPath()
+}
+
+// artifactTotalsOf counts what an artifact file holds, read directly so
+// the numbers do not depend on anything the client does.
+func artifactTotalsOf(path string) (artifactTotals, error) {
+	db, err := sql.Open("sqlite", "file:"+path+"?mode=ro")
+	if err != nil {
+		return artifactTotals{}, err
+	}
+
+	defer func() { _ = db.Close() }()
+
+	var totals artifactTotals
+
+	err = db.QueryRow(`SELECT COUNT(*), COALESCE(SUM(popularity > 0), 0)
+		FROM explore_index`).Scan(&totals.rows, &totals.withListen)
+	if err != nil {
+		return artifactTotals{}, err
+	}
+
+	return totals, nil
+}
+
+// indexTotalsOf counts what the client ended up with.
+func indexTotalsOf(db *database.DB) (artifactTotals, error) {
+	var totals artifactTotals
+
+	err := db.QueryRowWriter(`SELECT COUNT(*), COALESCE(SUM(popularity > 0), 0)
+		FROM explore_index`).Scan(&totals.rows, &totals.withListen)
+
+	return totals, err
+}