diff --git a/.circleci/create_circleci_config.py b/.circleci/create_circleci_config.py
index e900b89475..06f414fe6d 100644
--- a/.circleci/create_circleci_config.py
+++ b/.circleci/create_circleci_config.py
@@ -110,6 +110,8 @@ class CircleCIJob:
             print(f"Using {self.docker_image} docker image")
         if self.install_steps is None:
             self.install_steps = ["uv pip install ."]
+        # Use a custom patched pytest to force exit the process at the end, to avoid `Too long with no output (exceeded 10m0s): context deadline exceeded`
+        self.install_steps.append("uv pip install git+https://github.com/ydshieh/pytest.git@8.4.1-ydshieh")
         if self.pytest_options is None:
             self.pytest_options = {}
         if isinstance(self.tests_to_run, str):
diff --git a/docker/consistency.dockerfile b/docker/consistency.dockerfile
index c31bdc7394..e569307f92 100644
--- a/docker/consistency.dockerfile
+++ b/docker/consistency.dockerfile
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ ARG REF=main
 RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y time git g++ pkg-config make git-lfs
 ENV UV_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python
 RUN pip install uv && uv pip install --no-cache-dir -U pip setuptools GitPython
-RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir --upgrade 'torch<2.8' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir --upgrade 'torch' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 # tensorflow pin matching setup.py
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir pypi-kenlm
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir "tensorflow-cpu<2.16" "tf-keras<2.16"
diff --git a/docker/custom-tokenizers.dockerfile b/docker/custom-tokenizers.dockerfile
index f1128c87fb..926f4668c1 100644
--- a/docker/custom-tokenizers.dockerfile
+++ b/docker/custom-tokenizers.dockerfile
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ RUN cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local
 RUN make install -j 10
 
 
-RUN uv pip install --no-cache --upgrade 'torch<2.8' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+RUN uv pip install --no-cache --upgrade 'torch' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir  --no-deps accelerate --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install  --no-cache-dir "git+https://github.com/huggingface/transformers.git@${REF}#egg=transformers[ja,testing,sentencepiece,jieba,spacy,ftfy,rjieba]" unidic unidic-lite
 # spacy is not used so not tested. Causes to failures. TODO fix later
diff --git a/docker/examples-torch.dockerfile b/docker/examples-torch.dockerfile
index 92e931ebec..7d11d385c1 100644
--- a/docker/examples-torch.dockerfile
+++ b/docker/examples-torch.dockerfile
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ USER root
 RUN apt-get update &&  apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends libsndfile1-dev espeak-ng time git g++ cmake pkg-config openssh-client git ffmpeg
 ENV UV_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python
 RUN pip --no-cache-dir install uv && uv pip install --no-cache-dir -U pip setuptools
-RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch<2.8' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' 'torchcodec<0.6.0' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' 'torchcodec' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install --no-deps timm accelerate --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir librosa "git+https://github.com/huggingface/transformers.git@${REF}#egg=transformers[sklearn,sentencepiece,vision,testing]" seqeval albumentations jiwer
 RUN uv pip uninstall transformers
diff --git a/docker/exotic-models.dockerfile b/docker/exotic-models.dockerfile
index bc30a78859..21faf6e916 100644
--- a/docker/exotic-models.dockerfile
+++ b/docker/exotic-models.dockerfile
@@ -2,13 +2,12 @@ FROM python:3.9-slim
 ENV PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1
 ARG REF=main
 USER root
-# `libgl1-mesa-glx` is removed in #40174 due to `libgl1-mesa-glx is not available, but is referred to by another package.`
-RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y libsndfile1-dev espeak-ng time git libgl1 g++ tesseract-ocr
+RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y libsndfile1-dev espeak-ng time git libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1 g++ tesseract-ocr
 ENV UV_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python
 RUN pip --no-cache-dir install uv && uv pip install --no-cache-dir -U pip setuptools
-RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch<2.8' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir  --no-deps timm accelerate
-RUN uv pip install -U --no-cache-dir pytesseract python-Levenshtein opencv-python nltk
+RUN uv pip install -U --upgrade-strategy eager --no-cache-dir pytesseract python-Levenshtein opencv-python nltk
 # RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir natten==0.15.1+torch210cpu -f https://shi-labs.com/natten/wheels
 RUN uv pip install  --no-cache-dir "git+https://github.com/huggingface/transformers.git@${REF}#egg=transformers[testing, vision]" 'scikit-learn' 'torch-stft' 'nose'  'dataset'
 # RUN git clone https://github.com/facebookresearch/detectron2.git
diff --git a/docker/pipeline-torch.dockerfile b/docker/pipeline-torch.dockerfile
index 9091061bf8..b968372b5f 100644
--- a/docker/pipeline-torch.dockerfile
+++ b/docker/pipeline-torch.dockerfile
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ USER root
 RUN apt-get update &&  apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends libsndfile1-dev espeak-ng time git pkg-config openssh-client git ffmpeg
 ENV UV_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python
 RUN pip --no-cache-dir install uv && uv pip install --no-cache-dir -U pip setuptools
-RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch<2.8' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' 'torchcodec<0.6.0' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' 'torchcodec' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install --no-deps timm accelerate --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir librosa "git+https://github.com/huggingface/transformers.git@${REF}#egg=transformers[sklearn,sentencepiece,vision,testing]"
 RUN uv pip uninstall transformers
diff --git a/docker/torch-jax-light.dockerfile b/docker/torch-jax-light.dockerfile
index 95d41ff5a5..9c7835eca1 100644
--- a/docker/torch-jax-light.dockerfile
+++ b/docker/torch-jax-light.dockerfile
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ RUN apt-get update &&  apt-get install -y libsndfile1-dev espeak-ng time git g++
 ENV UV_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python
 RUN pip --no-cache-dir install uv && uv pip install --no-cache-dir -U pip setuptools
 RUN uv pip install --no-deps accelerate
-RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch<2.8' 'torchvision' 'torchaudio' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch' 'torchvision' 'torchaudio' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir "scipy<1.13" "git+https://github.com/huggingface/transformers.git@${REF}#egg=transformers[flax,audio,sklearn,sentencepiece,vision,testing]"
 
 
diff --git a/docker/torch-light.dockerfile b/docker/torch-light.dockerfile
index 83a78d4004..5bb2ad93ed 100644
--- a/docker/torch-light.dockerfile
+++ b/docker/torch-light.dockerfile
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ USER root
 RUN apt-get update &&  apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends libsndfile1-dev espeak-ng time git g++ cmake pkg-config openssh-client git git-lfs ffmpeg
 ENV UV_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python
 RUN pip --no-cache-dir install uv && uv pip install --no-cache-dir -U pip setuptools
-RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch<2.8' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' 'torchcodec<0.6.0' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' 'torchcodec' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install --no-deps timm accelerate --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir librosa "git+https://github.com/huggingface/transformers.git@${REF}#egg=transformers[sklearn,sentencepiece,vision,testing,tiktoken,num2words,video]"
 RUN uv pip uninstall transformers
diff --git a/docker/torch-tf-light.dockerfile b/docker/torch-tf-light.dockerfile
index 71ea81d716..e1ad553515 100644
--- a/docker/torch-tf-light.dockerfile
+++ b/docker/torch-tf-light.dockerfile
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ RUN apt-get update &&  apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends libsndfile1-de
 ENV UV_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python
 RUN pip --no-cache-dir install uv && uv pip install --no-cache-dir -U pip setuptools
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir  --no-deps accelerate --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu 
-RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch<2.8' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir 'torch' 'torchaudio' 'torchvision' --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
 RUN git lfs install
 
 RUN uv pip install --no-cache-dir pypi-kenlm