diff --git a/.github/workflows/examples.yml b/.github/workflows/examples.yml
index ae068cd0680e0..2d24e7868720a 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/examples.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/examples.yml
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ env:
   MLFLOW_HOME: ${{ github.workspace }}
   MLFLOW_CONDA_HOME: /usr/share/miniconda
   PIP_EXTRA_INDEX_URL: https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
+  PIP_CONSTRAINT: ${{ github.workspace }}/requirements/constraints.txt
   PYTHONFAULTHANDLER: "1"
 
 jobs:
@@ -123,9 +124,9 @@ jobs:
         run: |
           REPO="${{ github.repository }}"
           PR_NUMBER="${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}"
-          CHANGED_FILES=$(python dev/list_changed_files.py --repository $REPO --pr-num $PR_NUMBER | grep "Dockerfile\|\.dockerignore" || true);
-          DOCKER_CHANGED=$([[ ! -z "$CHANGED_FILES" ]] && echo "true" || echo "false")
-          echo -e "CHANGED_FILES:\nCHANGED_FILES"
+          CHANGED_FILES=$(python dev/list_changed_files.py --repository $REPO --pr-num $PR_NUMBER | grep -E '^(Dockerfile|\.dockerignore)$' || true)
+          DOCKER_CHANGED=$([[ -n "$CHANGED_FILES" ]] && echo "true" || echo "false")
+          echo -e "CHANGED_FILES:\n$CHANGED_FILES"
           echo "DOCKER_CHANGED: $DOCKER_CHANGED"
           echo "docker_changed=$DOCKER_CHANGED" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
 
diff --git a/examples/mlflow_artifacts/docker-compose.yml b/examples/mlflow_artifacts/docker-compose.yml
index a8976b60eb1d9..2a09d4f566c08 100644
--- a/examples/mlflow_artifacts/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/examples/mlflow_artifacts/docker-compose.yml
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 version: "3"
 services:
   minio:
-    image: minio/minio
+    image: quay.io/minio/minio:RELEASE.2024-12-18T13-15-44Z
     expose:
       - "9000"
     ports:
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ services:
     command: server /data --console-address ":9001"
 
   minio-create-bucket:
-    image: minio/mc
+    image: quay.io/minio/mc:RELEASE.2024-11-21T17-21-54Z
     depends_on:
       minio:
         condition: service_healthy
diff --git a/mlflow/R/mlflow/Dockerfile.dev b/mlflow/R/mlflow/Dockerfile.dev
index d673f73f4741f..7d7de1a6408c0 100644
--- a/mlflow/R/mlflow/Dockerfile.dev
+++ b/mlflow/R/mlflow/Dockerfile.dev
@@ -1,9 +1,8 @@
-# Our internal Jenkins job can't build an image from rocker/r-ver:>=4.2.2 (which is based on Ubuntu 22.04).
-FROM rocker/r-ver:4.2.1
+FROM rocker/r-ver:4.4.2
 
 WORKDIR /mlflow/mlflow/R/mlflow
 RUN apt-get update -y
-RUN apt-get install lsb-release git wget libxml2-dev libgit2-dev -y
+RUN apt-get install lsb-release git wget libxml2-dev libgit2-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libuv1 -y
 
 # Install miniforge
 RUN wget https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge/releases/latest/download/Miniforge3-Linux-x86_64.sh -O ~/miniforge.sh
diff --git a/mlflow/sentence_transformers/__init__.py b/mlflow/sentence_transformers/__init__.py
index 099fdbacdb61b..82ac5b8c4c866 100644
--- a/mlflow/sentence_transformers/__init__.py
+++ b/mlflow/sentence_transformers/__init__.py
@@ -524,9 +524,13 @@ def predict(self, sentences, params: dict[str, Any] | None = None):
             # Wrap the output to OpenAI format only when the input is dict `{"input": ... }`
             if self.task and list(sentences.columns)[0] == _LLM_V1_EMBEDDING_INPUT_KEY:
                 convert_output_to_llm_v1_format = True
-            sentences = sentences.iloc[:, 0]
-            if type(sentences[0]) == list:
+            # `model.encode` rejects `pd.Series`/`DataFrame` since sentence-transformers v5.4
+            # (https://github.com/huggingface/sentence-transformers/pull/3554)
+            sentences = sentences.iloc[:, 0].tolist()
+            if sentences and type(sentences[0]) == list:
                 sentences = sentences[0]
+        elif type(sentences) == pd.Series:
+            sentences = sentences.tolist()
 
         # The encode API has additional parameters that we can add as kwargs.
         # See https://www.sbert.net/docs/package_reference/SentenceTransformer.html#sentence_transformers.SentenceTransformer.encode
diff --git a/requirements/extra-ml-requirements.txt b/requirements/extra-ml-requirements.txt
index 362d28931ed98..6143bfc0d294b 100644
--- a/requirements/extra-ml-requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements/extra-ml-requirements.txt
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ spacy>=3.3.0,<3.8
 # Required by mlflow.tensorflow
 tensorflow>=2.10.0; platform_system!="Darwin" or platform_machine!="arm64"
 tensorflow-macos>=2.10.0; platform_system=="Darwin" and platform_machine=="arm64"
+tensorboard
 # Required by mlflow.pytorch
 torch>=1.11.0
 torchvision>=0.12.0
diff --git a/tests/server/auth/test_auth.py b/tests/server/auth/test_auth.py
index 618dd828433e0..f894c84a5e00f 100644
--- a/tests/server/auth/test_auth.py
+++ b/tests/server/auth/test_auth.py
@@ -363,15 +363,15 @@ def test_create_and_delete_registered_model(client, monkeypatch):
     assert rm.name == "test_model"
 
 
-def _wait(url: str):
+def _wait(url: str, timeout: int = 10) -> None:
     t = time.time()
-    while time.time() - t < 5:
+    while time.time() - t < timeout:
         try:
             if requests.get(f"{url}/health").ok:
-                yield
+                return
         except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
             pass
-        time.sleep(1)
+        time.sleep(0.5)
 
     pytest.fail("Server did not start")
 
@@ -412,8 +412,7 @@ def test_proxy_log_artifacts(monkeypatch, tmp_path):
     ) as prc:
         try:
             url = f"http://{host}:{port}"
-            for _ in _wait(url):
-                break
+            _wait(url)
 
             mlflow.set_tracking_uri(url)
             client = MlflowClient(url)
diff --git a/tests/tracking/test_mlflow_artifacts.py b/tests/tracking/test_mlflow_artifacts.py
index 99fcf54ccc446..09adbffdc29dc 100644
--- a/tests/tracking/test_mlflow_artifacts.py
+++ b/tests/tracking/test_mlflow_artifacts.py
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
     MLFLOW_WORKSPACE,
     MLFLOW_WORKSPACE_STORE_URI,
 )
+from mlflow.store.tracking.sqlalchemy_store import SqlAlchemyStore
 from mlflow.utils.os import is_windows
 
 from tests.helper_functions import LOCALHOST, get_safe_port
@@ -68,6 +69,9 @@ def artifacts_server():
         artifacts_destination = os.path.join(tmpdir, "mlartifacts")
         url = f"http://{LOCALHOST}:{port}"
         default_artifact_root = f"{url}/api/2.0/mlflow-artifacts/artifacts"
+        # Initialize the database before launching the server process
+        s = SqlAlchemyStore(backend_store_uri, default_artifact_root)
+        s.engine.dispose()
         process = _launch_server(
             LOCALHOST,
             port,