diff --git a/admin/app/controllers/rag_controller.ts b/admin/app/controllers/rag_controller.ts
index 01479f4..de84e11 100644
--- a/admin/app/controllers/rag_controller.ts
+++ b/admin/app/controllers/rag_controller.ts
@@ -69,8 +69,8 @@ export default class RagController {
   }
 
   public async getFileWarnings({ response }: HttpContext) {
-    const warnings = await this.ragService.computeFileWarnings()
-    return response.status(200).json({ warnings })
+    const result = await this.ragService.computeFileWarnings()
+    return response.status(200).json(result)
   }
 
   public async deleteFile({ request, response }: HttpContext) {
diff --git a/admin/app/services/rag_service.ts b/admin/app/services/rag_service.ts
index 91f1658..7c8f943 100644
--- a/admin/app/services/rag_service.ts
+++ b/admin/app/services/rag_service.ts
@@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ import KVStore from '#models/kv_store'
 import KbIngestState from '#models/kb_ingest_state'
 import { decideScanAction, type IngestPolicy } from '../utils/kb_ingest_decision.js'
 import KbRatioRegistry from '#models/kb_ratio_registry'
-import { decideWarnings, type FileWarning } from '../utils/kb_warning_decision.js'
+import { decideWarnings } from '../utils/kb_warning_decision.js'
+import type { FileWarning, FileWarningsResult } from '../../types/rag.js'
 import { ZIMExtractionService } from './zim_extraction_service.js'
 import { ZIM_BATCH_SIZE } from '../../constants/zim_extraction.js'
 import { ProcessAndEmbedFileResponse, ProcessZIMFileResponse, RAGResult, RerankedRAGResult } from '../../types/rag.js'
@@ -1090,16 +1091,18 @@ export class RagService {
 
   /**
    * Compute conditional warnings (RFC #883 §6) for every source the scanner
-   * sees on disk. Returns a map from source path → list of warnings, with
-   * sources that have no warnings omitted entirely (so the frontend can
-   * `warningsBySource[source] ?? []` for clean defaults).
+   * sees on disk. Returns `{ ok, warnings }` — `ok: false` distinguishes a
+   * computation failure (Qdrant unreachable, DB outage, FS error) from the
+   * healthy-but-empty case, which is critical because the whole point of this
+   * surface is to expose silent failures; reporting "everything healthy" when
+   * we couldn't actually check would reintroduce the bug we set out to fix.
    *
    * Per-source chunk counts come from a single Qdrant scroll over the
    * collection's points; expected-chunk estimates come from the ratio
    * registry. Files in the scanner's directories that have no qdrant points
    * at all show up with `chunksInQdrant: 0` so Warning A can fire.
    */
-  public async computeFileWarnings(): Promise<Record<string, FileWarning[]>> {
+  public async computeFileWarnings(): Promise<FileWarningsResult> {
     try {
       await this._ensureCollection(
         RagService.CONTENT_COLLECTION_NAME,
@@ -1165,10 +1168,10 @@ export class RagService {
         if (warnings.length > 0) out[source] = warnings
       }
 
-      return out
+      return { ok: true, warnings: out }
     } catch (error) {
       logger.error('[RAG] Error computing file warnings:', error)
-      return {}
+      return { ok: false, warnings: {} }
     }
   }
 
diff --git a/admin/inertia/components/chat/KnowledgeBaseModal.tsx b/admin/inertia/components/chat/KnowledgeBaseModal.tsx
index 9311718..0667d88 100644
--- a/admin/inertia/components/chat/KnowledgeBaseModal.tsx
+++ b/admin/inertia/components/chat/KnowledgeBaseModal.tsx
@@ -51,15 +51,17 @@ export default function KnowledgeBaseModal({ aiAssistantName = "AI Assistant", o
     select: (data) => data || [],
   })
 
-  // Per-file conditional warnings (RFC #883 §6). Only sources with at least
-  // one triggered warning are returned, so an empty map means everything is
-  // healthy. Polled at the same idle cadence as health for low overhead.
-  const { data: fileWarnings = {} } = useQuery({
+  // Per-file conditional warnings (RFC #883 §6). `ok: false` means the
+  // computation itself failed (Qdrant/DB/FS) — distinct from `ok: true` with
+  // an empty map, which means everything is healthy. We surface the failure
+  // explicitly so a silent backend failure doesn't masquerade as health.
+  const { data: warningsResult } = useQuery({
     queryKey: ['kbFileWarnings'],
     queryFn: () => api.getKbFileWarnings(),
-    select: (data) => data ?? {},
     refetchInterval: 30_000,
   })
+  const fileWarnings = warningsResult?.warnings ?? {}
+  const warningsUnavailable = warningsResult !== undefined && warningsResult.ok === false
 
   // Global auto-index policy. KVStore returns `null` for an unset key, which
   // we treat as 'Always' for backward compatibility with installs that predate
@@ -444,7 +446,15 @@ export default function KnowledgeBaseModal({ aiAssistantName = "AI Assistant", o
 
               </div>
             </div>
-            <StyledTable<KbFileGroup>
+            {warningsUnavailable && (
+              <div className="mb-4 inline-flex items-center gap-2 text-xs text-amber-700 dark:text-amber-300 bg-amber-50 dark:bg-amber-950/40 border border-amber-200 dark:border-amber-800 rounded px-3 py-2">
+                <span aria-hidden="true">⚠</span>
+                <span>
+                  File warnings unavailable — couldn't read storage state. Retrying…
+                </span>
+              </div>
+            )}
+            <StyledTable<{ source: string }>
               className="font-semibold"
               rowLines={true}
               columns={[
diff --git a/admin/inertia/lib/api.ts b/admin/inertia/lib/api.ts
index 950f593..f16f730 100644
--- a/admin/inertia/lib/api.ts
+++ b/admin/inertia/lib/api.ts
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ import { FileEntry } from '../../types/files'
 import { CheckLatestVersionResult, SystemInformationResponse, SystemUpdateStatus } from '../../types/system'
 import { DownloadJobWithProgress, WikipediaState } from '../../types/downloads'
 import type { Country, CountryCode, CountryGroup, MapExtractPreflight } from '../../types/maps'
-import { EmbedJobWithProgress, FileWarning } from '../../types/rag'
+import { EmbedJobWithProgress, FileWarningsResult } from '../../types/rag'
 import type { CategoryWithStatus, CollectionWithStatus, ContentUpdateCheckResult, ResourceUpdateInfo } from '../../types/collections'
 import { catchInternal } from './util'
 import { NomadChatResponse, NomadInstalledModel, NomadOllamaModel, OllamaChatRequest } from '../../types/ollama'
@@ -477,10 +477,8 @@ class API {
 
   async getKbFileWarnings() {
     return catchInternal(async () => {
-      const response = await this.client.get<{ warnings: Record<string, FileWarning[]> }>(
-        '/rag/file-warnings'
-      )
-      return response.data.warnings
+      const response = await this.client.get<FileWarningsResult>('/rag/file-warnings')
+      return response.data
     })()
   }
 
diff --git a/admin/types/rag.ts b/admin/types/rag.ts
index 8aaa0f6..aa14127 100644
--- a/admin/types/rag.ts
+++ b/admin/types/rag.ts
@@ -44,4 +44,16 @@ export type RerankedRAGResult = Omit<RAGResult, 'keywords'> & {
 
 export type FileWarning =
   | { kind: 'zero_chunks'; fileSizeBytes: number }
-  | { kind: 'partial_stall'; chunksEmbedded: number; chunksExpected: number }
\ No newline at end of file
+  | { kind: 'partial_stall'; chunksEmbedded: number; chunksExpected: number }
+
+/**
+ * Result of computing per-file warnings. `ok: false` means the computation
+ * itself failed (Qdrant unreachable, DB outage, FS read error) — distinct from
+ * `ok: true` with an empty map, which means every scanned file is healthy.
+ * The frontend should surface a neutral "warnings unavailable" indicator on
+ * `!ok` rather than implying everything is fine.
+ */
+export type FileWarningsResult = {
+  ok: boolean
+  warnings: Record<string, FileWarning[]>
+}
\ No newline at end of file