diff --git a/.circleci/config.yml b/.circleci/config.yml
index daed5792cf7..a518628afb9 100644
--- a/.circleci/config.yml
+++ b/.circleci/config.yml
@@ -3389,7 +3389,9 @@ jobs:
             nvm use 20
 
             cd ui/litellm-dashboard
-            npm ci || npm install
+            # Remove node_modules and package-lock to ensure clean install (fixes optional deps issue)
+            rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json
+            npm install
 
             # CI run, with both LCOV (Codecov) and HTML (artifact you can click)
             CI=true npm run test -- --run --coverage \