diff --git a/TODO.md b/TODO.md
index 4d14c9b..cb6037d 100644
--- a/TODO.md
+++ b/TODO.md
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@
 - Card summaries now also translate lazily to Korean, and Gemini negative-assessment handling now drives stronger follow-up search behavior than before.
 - Search preview delivery is now moving away from persistent on-disk preview caching toward live proxy / live transcode behavior, with Google Video preview reuse added to result cards and modal playback.
 - Search breadth and Gemini review budget were widened again because the latest user feedback still reported a thin visible result count even after smarter filtering.
+- The codebase is now back on the broader-search / modal-fitting direction associated with `5ca7aef`, with an added Gemini deadline guard to reduce reverse-proxy `504` risk.
 
 ## Current Architecture
 - `backend/main.go`
@@ -233,6 +234,7 @@
 - The result modal should now stay within viewport height, but this still needs real browser confirmation on multiple short-height displays because CSS-only constraints were the source of the latest user-visible regression.
 - Artgrid preview playback now has a server-side ffmpeg transcode path for `.m3u8` style preview URLs, but this trades storage savings for runtime CPU cost.
 - The provided Artgrid HTML sample still does not expose a direct preview `m3u8` or `mp4` URL by itself, and `yt-dlp` probe on the sample clip URL returned `Unsupported URL`, so fully reliable Artgrid playback still depends on live-page/runtime preview discovery succeeding elsewhere in the pipeline.
+- Docker CLI is not installed in this environment, so container-image build verification still cannot be performed locally from this machine.
 - The local self-test script is better than before, but it is still a smoke test, not full integration coverage.
 
 ## Current Risks Around Search Quality
@@ -554,6 +556,7 @@
 ## Highest-Value Next Steps
 - [ ] Reduce `/api/search` latency further without collapsing result count
 - [ ] Rebuild the reverted search-expansion work from the previous stable baseline, but only after measuring where candidate quality collapses between ranked pool and final merge
+- [ ] Validate the reopened `5ca7aef` search-breadth direction against real proxy timeouts and visible result count before widening it any further
 - [ ] Build a repeatable repo-local bootstrap script or documented setup command set for non-root machines so fresh PC setup does not depend on shell history
 - [ ] Improve Envato / Artgrid preview acquisition reliability so Gemini Vision sees real frames more often
 - [ ] Browser-verify the new result modal at multiple viewport heights and confirm translated Source Summary readability on real long descriptions
@@ -625,6 +628,23 @@
 - If behavior in the browser does not match the latest backend/frontend code, the first assumption should be stale frontend assets until proven otherwise
 
 ## Recent Change Log
+- Date: `2026-03-17`
+- What changed:
+  - Reapplied the broader-search / modal-fitting codepath from `5ca7aef` as requested by the user.
+  - Added a targeted 504 mitigation by making Gemini batch recovery stop at the request deadline instead of continuing sequential single-candidate retries indefinitely.
+  - Kept an explicit Gemini vision JSON output token cap to reduce the chance of truncated model responses during larger structured batches.
+- Why it changed:
+  - The user explicitly asked to return to the `5ca7aef` direction and then fix the live `504 Gateway Time-out`.
+  - The provided log `ai-media-hub-2026-03-17T04-59-24-566Z.log` showed backend search collection finishing in about `22s`, then Gemini batch failure plus sequential recovery continuing until the reverse proxy returned `504`.
+  - The direct cause was deadline-unaware Gemini recovery work, not initial search collection itself.
+- How it was verified:
+  - `go test ./...`
+  - `bash scripts/selftest.sh`
+  - attempted `docker build -t ai-media-hub:test .` but `docker` is not installed in this environment
+- What is still risky or incomplete:
+  - This reduces one concrete `504` path, but it does not guarantee that all reverse-proxy timeout cases are eliminated under worse upstream conditions.
+  - Container-image build verification still needs to happen on a machine that actually has Docker available.
+
 - Date: `2026-03-17`
 - What changed:
   - Raised search breadth again by widening per-source collector caps, increasing the number of base queries considered, increasing per-collector query budgets, and expanding the Gemini candidate review budget.
diff --git a/backend/services/gemini.go b/backend/services/gemini.go
index c61894b..1d79df9 100644
--- a/backend/services/gemini.go
+++ b/backend/services/gemini.go
@@ -306,6 +306,7 @@ User query: ` + query,
 		},
 		"generationConfig": map[string]any{
 			"responseMimeType": "application/json",
+			"maxOutputTokens":  1400,
 		},
 	}
 
diff --git a/backend/services/ranker.go b/backend/services/ranker.go
index 006e27c..fcd3a72 100644
--- a/backend/services/ranker.go
+++ b/backend/services/ranker.go
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ func EvaluateAllCandidatesWithGemini(service *GeminiService, query string, ranke
 }
 
 func EvaluateAllCandidatesWithGeminiWithDeadline(service *GeminiService, query string, ranked []SearchResult, deadline time.Time) ([]AIRecommendation, GeminiBatchStats, error) {
-	const chunkSize = 8
+	const chunkSize = 6
 	const maxConcurrentBatches = 2
 	if service == nil {
 		return nil, GeminiBatchStats{}, fmt.Errorf("gemini service is not configured")
@@ -186,7 +186,7 @@ func EvaluateAllCandidatesWithGeminiWithDeadline(service *GeminiService, query s
 					"error":      batch.err.Error(),
 				})
 			}
-			recovered, recoveredErrs := recoverGeminiBatchSequentially(service, query, ranked, batch.index*chunkSize)
+			recovered, recoveredErrs := recoverGeminiBatchSequentially(service, query, ranked, batch.index*chunkSize, chunkSize, deadline)
 			if len(recovered) > 0 {
 				stats.SequentialRetried++
 				stats.Succeeded++
@@ -345,11 +345,17 @@ func MergeGeminiBatchStats(base, extra GeminiBatchStats) GeminiBatchStats {
 	return merged
 }
 
-func recoverGeminiBatchSequentially(service *GeminiService, query string, ranked []SearchResult, startIndex int) ([]AIRecommendation, []string) {
-	recovered := make([]AIRecommendation, 0, 8)
+func recoverGeminiBatchSequentially(service *GeminiService, query string, ranked []SearchResult, startIndex, chunkSize int, deadline time.Time) ([]AIRecommendation, []string) {
+	recovered := make([]AIRecommendation, 0, chunkSize)
 	errs := make([]string, 0, 4)
-	endIndex := min(startIndex+8, len(ranked))
+	endIndex := min(startIndex+chunkSize, len(ranked))
 	for idx := startIndex; idx < endIndex; idx++ {
+		if !deadline.IsZero() && time.Now().After(deadline) {
+			if len(errs) < 4 {
+				errs = append(errs, "sequential gemini recovery stopped at deadline")
+			}
+			break
+		}
 		recs, err := service.Recommend(query, []SearchResult{ranked[idx]})
 		if err != nil {
 			if len(errs) < 4 {