diff --git a/Plugin/unraid/include/ai.php b/Plugin/unraid/include/ai.php
index 3e4a4ce..a357539 100644
--- a/Plugin/unraid/include/ai.php
+++ b/Plugin/unraid/include/ai.php
@@ -236,8 +236,11 @@ function vv_ai_models_loaded(): ?array {
 function vv_ai_index_meta(): array {
     $cfg = vv_ai_config();
     if (!file_exists($cfg['db'])) return [];
+    // Columns are k/v, not key/value. Named wrongly this returns nothing and the embedder-match
+    // check reports "unrecorded" — a silent pass on the one mismatch that returns confident
+    // nonsense rather than an error.
     $raw = trim((string)@shell_exec(
-        'sqlite3 ' . escapeshellarg($cfg['db']) . ' ' . escapeshellarg('SELECT key, value FROM vv_meta;') . ' 2>/dev/null'
+        'sqlite3 ' . escapeshellarg($cfg['db']) . ' ' . escapeshellarg('SELECT k, v FROM vv_meta;') . ' 2>/dev/null'
     ));
     $out = [];
     foreach (explode("\n", $raw) as $line) {
@@ -288,14 +291,14 @@ function vv_ai_health(): array {
     if ($cfg['model'] === '') {
         $add('gen', 'Generation model', 'bad', 'not configured',
              'Set ' . strtoupper(vv_detect_host()) . '_OLLAMA_MODEL in the host conf');
-    } elseif (!in_array($cfg['model'], $names, true)) {
+    } elseif (!vv_ai_model_installed($cfg['model'], $names)) {
         $add('gen', 'Generation model', 'bad', $cfg['model'] . ' is not installed',
              'Either `ollama pull` it, or point _OLLAMA_MODEL at one of: ' . implode(', ', array_slice($names, 0, 4)));
     } else {
         $add('gen', 'Generation model', 'ok', $cfg['model']);
     }
 
-    if ($cfg['embed_model'] === '' || !in_array($cfg['embed_model'], $names, true)) {
+    if ($cfg['embed_model'] === '' || !vv_ai_model_installed($cfg['embed_model'], $names)) {
         $add('embed', 'Embedding model', 'bad',
              ($cfg['embed_model'] ?: 'not configured') . ' is not installed',
              'Retrieval cannot embed a query without it — `ollama pull ' . ($cfg['embed_model'] ?: 'nomic-embed-text') . '`');
@@ -315,7 +318,8 @@ function vv_ai_health(): array {
         // model without reindexing does not error — it silently returns nonsense, scored
         // confidently, which is the hardest failure here to notice from the answers alone.
         $builtWith = $meta['embed_model'] ?? '';
-        if ($builtWith !== '' && $cfg['embed_model'] !== '' && $builtWith !== $cfg['embed_model']) {
+        if ($builtWith !== '' && $cfg['embed_model'] !== ''
+            && vv_ai_model_norm($builtWith) !== vv_ai_model_norm($cfg['embed_model'])) {
             $add('embedmatch', 'Index / embedder match', 'bad',
                  'index built with ' . $builtWith . ', conf says ' . $cfg['embed_model'],
                  'Vectors from different models are not comparable — rerun AI/ai_index.sh --force');
@@ -348,6 +352,25 @@ function vv_ai_health(): array {
     return $checks;
 }
 
+// Ollama reports tags fully qualified — nomic-embed-text:latest — while conf commonly carries
+// the bare name, and both are valid references. Comparing literally reports an installed model
+// as missing, which is exactly the false alarm that makes a health panel worth ignoring.
+function vv_ai_model_norm(string $name): string {
+    $name = trim($name);
+    if ($name === '') return '';
+    // A colon in the final path segment is a tag; anything else is a registry path.
+    $last = substr($name, strrpos($name, '/') === false ? 0 : strrpos($name, '/') + 1);
+    return str_contains($last, ':') ? $name : $name . ':latest';
+}
+
+function vv_ai_model_installed(string $name, array $available): bool {
+    $n = vv_ai_model_norm($name);
+    foreach ($available as $m) {
+        if (vv_ai_model_norm($m) === $n) return true;
+    }
+    return false;
+}
+
 function command_exists_node(): bool {
     static $has = null;
     if ($has !== null) return $has;