diff --git a/.github/workflows/status_check.yml b/.github/workflows/status_check.yml
index da75647..099267f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/status_check.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/status_check.yml
@@ -197,9 +197,12 @@ jobs:
           # the result; the rest runs only on failure, so a green run is unchanged.
           #
           # Each line here is a separate `sh -c` -- the action splits the script on
-          # newlines -- so the failure handler has to stay on one line.
+          # newlines -- so the failure handler has to stay on one line. The action does
+          # not pass ignoreReturnCode, so a non-zero line fails the job outright: the
+          # probe ends in `|| true` because a grep that matches nothing exits 1, and a
+          # diagnostic must never be the thing that turns a run red.
           script: |
-            adb shell cat /proc/meminfo | grep -E 'MemTotal|MemAvailable|SwapTotal'
+            adb shell cat /proc/meminfo | grep -E 'MemTotal|MemAvailable|SwapTotal' || true
             ./gradlew :app:connectedDebugAndroidTest -PabiFilters=x86_64 || { echo "=== guest memory at failure ==="; adb shell cat /proc/meminfo | grep -E 'MemTotal|MemAvailable|SwapTotal'; echo "=== kernel OOM kills ==="; adb shell dmesg | grep -iE 'oom|lowmemory|killed process' | tail -20; echo "=== native crashes ==="; adb logcat -d -b crash | tail -40; exit 1; }
 
       - uses: actions/upload-artifact@043fb46d1a93c77aae656e7c1c64a875d1fc6a0a # v7.0.1