diff --git a/reme/components/keyword_index/bm25_index.py b/reme/components/keyword_index/bm25_index.py
index 4860d0ad..06daa870 100644
--- a/reme/components/keyword_index/bm25_index.py
+++ b/reme/components/keyword_index/bm25_index.py
@@ -185,10 +185,10 @@ class BM25Index(BaseKeywordIndex):
         self._idf_cache[token_id] = idf
         return idf
 
-    def _prepare_doc(self, doc_id: str, content: str) -> tuple[np.ndarray, int, Counter] | None:
-        """Tokenize and count terms; retire any prior version of `doc_id`."""
+    def _prepare_doc(self, doc_id: str, tokens: list[str]) -> tuple[np.ndarray, int, Counter] | None:
+        """Count prepared tokens; retire any prior version of `doc_id`."""
         self._remove_doc(doc_id)
-        token_ids = self._tokens_to_ids(self._tokenize(content))
+        token_ids = self._tokens_to_ids(tokens)
         if not token_ids:
             return None
         counts = Counter(token_ids)
@@ -252,14 +252,17 @@ class BM25Index(BaseKeywordIndex):
         if not docs_dict:
             return
 
+        # Tokenization can fail; finish it before retiring documents or allocating slots.
+        tokenized_docs = {doc_id: self._tokenize(content) for doc_id, content in docs_dict.items()}
+
         new_doc_ids: list[str] = []
         new_doc_lens: list[int] = []
         new_doc_token_ids: list[np.ndarray] = []
         pending: dict[int, list[tuple[int, int]]] = {}
         next_idx = len(self._doc_ids)
 
-        for doc_id, content in docs_dict.items():
-            prepared = self._prepare_doc(doc_id, content)
+        for doc_id, tokens in tokenized_docs.items():
+            prepared = self._prepare_doc(doc_id, tokens)
             if prepared is None:
                 continue
             unique_tids, n_tokens, token_counts = prepared
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_bm25_live_length.py b/tests/unit/test_bm25_live_length.py
index 5ba674d3..219beff1 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test_bm25_live_length.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test_bm25_live_length.py
@@ -87,23 +87,42 @@ async def test_snapshot_roundtrip_rebuilds_length_without_new_fields(tmp_path, m
 
 
 @pytest.mark.asyncio
-async def test_failed_batch_counts_only_published_arrays(tmp_path, monkeypatch):
-    monkeypatch.chdir(tmp_path)
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "batch",
+    [
+        {"existing": "unavailable"},
+        {"new": "fresh memory", "failing": "unavailable"},
+        {"new": "fresh memory", "existing": "unavailable"},
+        {"existing": "replacement memory", "failing": "unavailable"},
+    ],
+)
+async def test_failed_tokenization_preserves_documents_and_allows_retry(batch):
+    """A tokenizer error must not retire old documents or leave incomplete new slots."""
     index = make_index()
-    await index.add_docs({"old": "alpha beta", "keep": "gamma"})
-    tokenize = index._tokenize
+    tokenizer = index.tokenizer
+    await index.add_docs({"existing": "original memory", "untouched": "stable memory"})
+    before = await index.retrieve("original stable fresh replacement", limit=10)
+    tokenize = tokenizer.tokenize
 
-    def fail(text):
-        if text == "fail":
-            raise ValueError("tokenizer failed")
-        return tokenize(text)
+    def fail_on_unavailable(texts, **kwargs):
+        if "unavailable" in texts:
+            raise RuntimeError("tokenizer unavailable")
+        return tokenize(texts, **kwargs)
+
+    with patch.object(tokenizer, "tokenize", side_effect=fail_on_unavailable):
+        with pytest.raises(RuntimeError, match="tokenizer unavailable"):
+            await index.add_docs(batch)
 
-    with patch.object(index, "_tokenize", side_effect=fail):
-        with pytest.raises(ValueError, match="tokenizer failed"):
-            await index.add_docs({"pending": "alpha alpha", "old": "fail"})
-    # Existing partial-batch behavior retires old but does not append pending.
     assert_length(index)
-    assert index.total_len == 1
+    assert index.total_len == 4
+    assert set(index.document_ids) == {"existing", "untouched"}
+    assert await index.retrieve("original stable fresh replacement", limit=10) == before
+
+    retry = {doc_id: "recovered memory" if text == "unavailable" else text for doc_id, text in batch.items()}
+    await index.add_docs(retry)
+    assert set(index.document_ids) == {"existing", "untouched"} | set(batch)
+    assert set(await index.retrieve("fresh replacement recovered", limit=10)) == set(batch)
+    assert set(await index.retrieve("stable")) == {"untouched"}
 
 
 @pytest.mark.asyncio