diff --git a/plugins/nf-tower/src/main/io/seqera/tower/plugin/LogsCheckpoint.groovy b/plugins/nf-tower/src/main/io/seqera/tower/plugin/LogsCheckpoint.groovy
index 39d3c2e173..122deded2b 100644
--- a/plugins/nf-tower/src/main/io/seqera/tower/plugin/LogsCheckpoint.groovy
+++ b/plugins/nf-tower/src/main/io/seqera/tower/plugin/LogsCheckpoint.groovy
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@
 
 package io.seqera.tower.plugin
 
+import java.util.concurrent.CountDownLatch
+import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit
+
 import groovy.transform.CompileStatic
 import groovy.util.logging.Slf4j
 import nextflow.Session
@@ -26,7 +29,27 @@ import nextflow.util.Duration
 import nextflow.util.Threads
 /**
  * Implements a nextflow observer that periodically checkpoint
- * log, report and timeline files
+ * log, report and timeline files.
+ *
+ * <h2>Concurrency design</h2>
+ *
+ * A single daemon worker thread loops forever, sleeping for {@code interval}
+ * between checkpoints. The sleep is implemented as {@code stopLatch.await(interval)}
+ * rather than {@code Thread.sleep}: when shutdown is requested we {@code countDown()}
+ * the latch, which wakes the worker <em>immediately</em> without ever setting the
+ * thread's interrupt flag. Avoiding the interrupt flag matters because cloud SDKs
+ * (e.g. the AWS S3 client) observe it and abort in-flight uploads — that side effect
+ * was the source of repeated bugs in earlier versions of this class.
+ *
+ * <h2>Why shutdown can never hang the head job</h2>
+ *
+ * {@link #onFlowComplete()} / {@link #onFlowError} run on the main shutdown thread.
+ * They signal the worker and then {@code join} it for at most {@code terminateTimeout}.
+ * If the worker is stuck in a hung network upload inside {@code saveFiles()} the join
+ * times out and we <em>abandon</em> the worker. Because it is a daemon thread it cannot
+ * keep the JVM alive, so the head job exits cleanly. The final, authoritative log upload
+ * is performed elsewhere (see {@code CacheCommand}), so abandoning this best-effort
+ * periodic uploader loses nothing.
  *
  * @author Paolo Di Tommaso <paolo.ditommaso@gmail.com>
  */
@@ -38,50 +61,68 @@ class LogsCheckpoint implements TraceObserverV2 {
     private Map config
     private Thread thread
     private Duration interval
+    private Duration terminateTimeout
     private LogsHandler handler
-    private final Object lock = new Object()
+    private final CountDownLatch stopLatch = new CountDownLatch(1)
 
     @Override
     void onFlowCreate(Session session) {
         this.session = session
         this.config = session.config
-        this.handler = new LogsHandler(session, SysEnv.get())
+        this.handler = createHandler()
         this.interval = config.navigate('tower.logs.checkpoint.interval', defaultInterval()) as Duration
+        this.terminateTimeout = config.navigate('tower.logs.checkpoint.terminateTimeout', defaultTerminateTimeout()) as Duration
         thread = Threads.start('tower-logs-checkpoint', this.&run)
     }
 
+    protected LogsHandler createHandler() {
+        new LogsHandler(session, SysEnv.get())
+    }
+
     private String defaultInterval() {
         SysEnv.get('TOWER_LOGS_CHECKPOINT_INTERVAL','90s')
     }
 
+    private String defaultTerminateTimeout() {
+        SysEnv.get('TOWER_LOGS_CHECKPOINT_TERMINATE_TIMEOUT','120s')
+    }
+
     @Override
     void onFlowComplete() {
-        synchronized(lock) {
-            thread.interrupt()
-        }
-        thread.join()
+        stop()
     }
 
     @Override
     void onFlowError(TaskEvent event) {
-        synchronized(lock) {
-            thread.interrupt()
+        stop()
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Signal the worker thread to stop and wait a bounded amount of time for it to
+     * terminate. Never blocks shutdown indefinitely: if the worker is stuck in a hung
+     * upload it is abandoned once {@code terminateTimeout} elapses.
+     */
+    protected void stop() {
+        if( thread==null )
+            return
+        // wake the worker from its interval wait without touching the interrupt flag
+        stopLatch.countDown()
+        try {
+            thread.join(terminateTimeout.toMillis())
+        }
+        catch (InterruptedException e) {
+            Thread.currentThread().interrupt()
         }
-        thread.join()
+        if( thread.isAlive() )
+            log.warn "Logs checkpoint thread did not terminate within ${terminateTimeout} - abandoning it to allow the run to shut down"
     }
 
     protected void run() {
         log.debug "Starting logs checkpoint thread - interval: ${interval}"
         try {
-            while( true ) {
-                await(interval)
-                if( Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() )
-                    break
-                synchronized(lock) {
-                    if( Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() )
-                        break
-                    handler.saveFiles()
-                }
+            // await() returns true when a stop has been requested, false on timeout
+            while( !await(interval) ) {
+                handler.saveFiles()
             }
         }
         finally {
@@ -89,13 +130,20 @@ class LogsCheckpoint implements TraceObserverV2 {
         }
     }
 
-    protected void await(Duration interval) {
+    /**
+     * Wait up to {@code interval} for a stop request.
+     *
+     * @return {@code true} if a stop was requested (the loop must terminate),
+     *         {@code false} if the interval elapsed (time to checkpoint the logs).
+     */
+    protected boolean await(Duration interval) {
         try {
-            Thread.sleep(interval.toMillis())
+            return stopLatch.await(interval.toMillis(), TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)
         }
         catch (InterruptedException e) {
             log.debug "Interrupted logs checkpoint thread"
             Thread.currentThread().interrupt()
+            return true
         }
     }
 }
diff --git a/plugins/nf-tower/src/test/io/seqera/tower/plugin/LogsCheckpointTest.groovy b/plugins/nf-tower/src/test/io/seqera/tower/plugin/LogsCheckpointTest.groovy
index 4115a32637..c1d1a81e0b 100644
--- a/plugins/nf-tower/src/test/io/seqera/tower/plugin/LogsCheckpointTest.groovy
+++ b/plugins/nf-tower/src/test/io/seqera/tower/plugin/LogsCheckpointTest.groovy
@@ -16,10 +16,14 @@
 
 package io.seqera.tower.plugin
 
+import java.util.concurrent.CountDownLatch
+import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit
+
 import nextflow.Session
 import nextflow.SysEnv
 import nextflow.util.Duration
 import spock.lang.Specification
+import spock.lang.Timeout
 import test.TestHelper
 
 /**
@@ -35,12 +39,16 @@ class LogsCheckpointTest extends Specification {
             getConfig() >> [:]
         }
         and:
-        def checkpoint = new LogsCheckpoint()
+        def checkpoint = Spy(LogsCheckpoint)
+        checkpoint.createHandler() >> Mock(LogsHandler)
 
         when:
         checkpoint.onFlowCreate(session)
         then:
         checkpoint.@interval == Duration.of('90s')
+
+        cleanup:
+        checkpoint.onFlowComplete()
     }
 
     def 'should configure delay via env var' () {
@@ -51,7 +59,8 @@ class LogsCheckpointTest extends Specification {
             getConfig() >> [:]
         }
         and:
-        def checkpoint = new LogsCheckpoint()
+        def checkpoint = Spy(LogsCheckpoint)
+        checkpoint.createHandler() >> Mock(LogsHandler)
 
         when:
         checkpoint.onFlowCreate(session)
@@ -59,6 +68,7 @@ class LogsCheckpointTest extends Specification {
         checkpoint.@interval == Duration.of('200s')
 
         cleanup:
+        checkpoint.onFlowComplete()
         SysEnv.pop()
     }
 
@@ -70,7 +80,8 @@ class LogsCheckpointTest extends Specification {
             getWorkDir() >> TestHelper.createInMemTempDir()
         }
         and:
-        def checkpoint = new LogsCheckpoint()
+        def checkpoint = Spy(LogsCheckpoint)
+        checkpoint.createHandler() >> Mock(LogsHandler)
 
         when:
         checkpoint.onFlowCreate(session)
@@ -78,6 +89,118 @@ class LogsCheckpointTest extends Specification {
         checkpoint.@interval == Duration.of('500s')
 
         cleanup:
+        checkpoint.onFlowComplete()
         SysEnv.pop()
     }
-}
+
+    @Timeout(30)
+    def 'checkpoint worker should be a daemon thread so it cannot keep the JVM alive' () {
+        given:
+        def session = Mock(Session) {
+            getWorkDir() >> TestHelper.createInMemTempDir()
+            getConfig() >> [:]
+        }
+        and:
+        def checkpoint = Spy(LogsCheckpoint)
+        checkpoint.createHandler() >> Mock(LogsHandler)
+
+        when:
+        checkpoint.onFlowCreate(session)
+        then:
+        checkpoint.@thread.isDaemon()
+
+        cleanup:
+        checkpoint.onFlowComplete()
+    }
+
+    @Timeout(30)
+    def 'should checkpoint logs periodically' () {
+        given:
+        // count down on each save; await blocks until at least 3 saves happened
+        def saves = new CountDownLatch(3)
+        def handler = Mock(LogsHandler) {
+            saveFiles() >> { saves.countDown() }
+        }
+        def session = Mock(Session) {
+            getWorkDir() >> TestHelper.createInMemTempDir()
+            getConfig() >> [tower:[logs:[checkpoint:[interval: '100ms']]]]
+        }
+        and:
+        def checkpoint = Spy(LogsCheckpoint)
+        checkpoint.createHandler() >> handler
+
+        when:
+        checkpoint.onFlowCreate(session)
+        then:
+        saves.await(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+
+        cleanup:
+        checkpoint.onFlowComplete()
+    }
+
+    @Timeout(30)
+    def 'should stop promptly when idle without waiting for the full interval' () {
+        given:
+        def handler = Mock(LogsHandler)
+        def session = Mock(Session) {
+            getWorkDir() >> TestHelper.createInMemTempDir()
+            // a very long interval: stop must NOT wait for it
+            getConfig() >> [tower:[logs:[checkpoint:[interval: '1h']]]]
+        }
+        and:
+        def checkpoint = Spy(LogsCheckpoint)
+        checkpoint.createHandler() >> handler
+        and:
+        checkpoint.onFlowCreate(session)
+        // let the worker reach its wait state
+        sleep(300)
+
+        when:
+        long t0 = System.currentTimeMillis()
+        checkpoint.onFlowComplete()
+        long elapsed = System.currentTimeMillis() - t0
+
+        then:
+        elapsed < 5_000
+        !checkpoint.@thread.isAlive()
+        // never reached a checkpoint within the 1h interval
+        0 * handler.saveFiles()
+    }
+
+    @Timeout(30)
+    def 'should not block shutdown when saveFiles is hung on a network call' () {
+        given:
+        def entered = new CountDownLatch(1)
+        def release = new CountDownLatch(1) // never released -> saveFiles blocks forever
+        def handler = Mock(LogsHandler) {
+            saveFiles() >> { entered.countDown(); release.await() }
+        }
+        def session = Mock(Session) {
+            getWorkDir() >> TestHelper.createInMemTempDir()
+            getConfig() >> [tower:[logs:[checkpoint:[interval: '50ms', terminateTimeout: '500ms']]]]
+        }
+        and:
+        def checkpoint = Spy(LogsCheckpoint)
+        checkpoint.createHandler() >> handler
+        and:
+        checkpoint.onFlowCreate(session)
+        // wait until the worker is actually stuck inside saveFiles
+        assert entered.await(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+
+        when:
+        long t0 = System.currentTimeMillis()
+        checkpoint.onFlowComplete()
+        long elapsed = System.currentTimeMillis() - t0
+
+        then:
+        // returned within ~terminateTimeout, NOT waiting for the never-ending saveFiles
+        elapsed < 5_000
+        // the stuck worker was abandoned rather than joined; it is a daemon so it
+        // cannot keep the JVM alive even though it is still technically running
+        checkpoint.@thread.isAlive()
+        checkpoint.@thread.isDaemon()
+
+        cleanup:
+        release.countDown()
+    }
+}
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