diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yaml b/.github/workflows/ci.yaml
index 8e0007aee5..ea5127a3cd 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yaml
@@ -123,7 +123,13 @@ jobs:
     # single job in the workflow — while still running the full pytest lanes.
     #
     # Re-disabled (Sep 2026): the Sep 1 re-enable is still incredibly flaky.
-    if: ${{ false && (needs.detect.outputs.python_prod == 'true' || needs.detect.outputs.frontend == 'true' })}
+    # Keep this a bare `if: false`. The earlier
+    # `${{ false && (... || ...) }}` form on this reusable-workflow job made
+    # GitHub's workflow parser fail at startup ("An unexpected error has
+    # occurred") — every ci.yaml run repo-wide dispatched 0 jobs from
+    # 24f5a60ed1 until this line changed. To re-enable, restore:
+    #   if: ${{ needs.detect.outputs.python_prod == 'true' || needs.detect.outputs.frontend == 'true' }}
+    if: false
     uses: ./.github/workflows/e2e-desktop.yml
 
   docs-site: