diff --git a/packages/engine/src/services/captureFailure.test.ts b/packages/engine/src/services/captureFailure.test.ts
index c973a94c5..b580a4aee 100644
--- a/packages/engine/src/services/captureFailure.test.ts
+++ b/packages/engine/src/services/captureFailure.test.ts
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ describe("classifyCaptureFailure", () => {
     ["Target closed", "transient_browser"],
     ["Runtime.callFunctionOn timed out after 30000ms", "protocol_timeout"],
     ["Runtime.evaluate timed out", "protocol_timeout"],
+    ["drawElement worker encode timed out (frame 42)", "protocol_timeout"],
     ["Waiting failed: 30000ms exceeded", "protocol_timeout"],
     ["JavaScript heap out of memory", "memory_exhaustion"],
     ["drawElement self-verify failed", "verification"],
@@ -55,6 +56,14 @@ describe("classifyCaptureFailure", () => {
     expect(Object.isFrozen(failure.workerDiagnostics[0]?.lines)).toBe(true);
   });
 
+  it("classifies repeated operation text in linear time", () => {
+    const repeatedCopy = "copy".repeat(25_000);
+
+    expect(classifyCaptureFailure(new Error(repeatedCopy)).kind).toBe("authoring");
+    expect(classifyCaptureFailure(new Error(`${repeatedCopy} failed`)).kind).toBe("io");
+    expect(classifyCaptureFailure(new Error("copy\nfailed")).kind).toBe("authoring");
+  });
+
   it("marks structural failures fatal but leaves retryable failures non-fatal", () => {
     expect(
       isFatalCaptureFailure(new CaptureFailure({ kind: "authoring", message: "bad source" })),
diff --git a/packages/engine/src/services/captureFailure.ts b/packages/engine/src/services/captureFailure.ts
index c69e6580d..c0e3567bf 100644
--- a/packages/engine/src/services/captureFailure.ts
+++ b/packages/engine/src/services/captureFailure.ts
@@ -58,6 +58,7 @@ const PROTOCOL_TIMEOUT_PATTERNS = [
   /Runtime\.callFunctionOn timed out/i,
   /Runtime\.evaluate timed out/i,
   /HeadlessExperimental\.beginFrame timed out/i,
+  /drawElement worker encode timed out \(frame \d+\)/i,
   /Protocol error[\s\S]*tim(?:ed|e) out/i,
   /Waiting failed:\s*\d+\s*ms exceeded/i,
   /Waiting failed[\s\S]*timeout/i,
@@ -103,11 +104,25 @@ function matchesAny(message: string, patterns: readonly RegExp[]): boolean {
   return patterns.some((pattern) => pattern.test(message));
 }
 
+const IO_OPERATION_TOKENS = ["read", "write", "rename", "copy", "open", "file", "directory"];
+
+function hasIoOperationFailure(message: string): boolean {
+  const normalized = message.toLowerCase();
+  return normalized.split(/[\r\n]/).some((line) =>
+    IO_OPERATION_TOKENS.some((operation) => {
+      const operationIndex = line.indexOf(operation);
+      if (operationIndex < 0) return false;
+      const failureStart = operationIndex + operation.length;
+      return line.indexOf("failed", failureStart) >= 0 || line.indexOf("error", failureStart) >= 0;
+    }),
+  );
+}
+
 function ioError(error: unknown, message: string): boolean {
   const code = error instanceof Error ? (error as NodeJS.ErrnoException).code : undefined;
   return (
     Boolean(code && /^(?:EACCES|EEXIST|EIO|EMFILE|ENFILE|ENOENT|ENOSPC|EPERM|EROFS)$/.test(code)) ||
-    /(?:read|write|rename|copy|open|file|directory).*(?:failed|error)/i.test(message)
+    hasIoOperationFailure(message)
   );
 }
 
diff --git a/packages/producer/src/services/renderOrchestrator.test.ts b/packages/producer/src/services/renderOrchestrator.test.ts
index f2281afaf..e900b68f2 100644
--- a/packages/producer/src/services/renderOrchestrator.test.ts
+++ b/packages/producer/src/services/renderOrchestrator.test.ts
@@ -1513,6 +1513,13 @@ describe("adaptive missing-frame retry helpers", () => {
         new Error("[Parallel] Capture failed: Worker 1: HeadlessExperimental.beginFrame timed out"),
       ),
     ).toBe(true);
+    expect(
+      isRecoverableParallelCaptureError(
+        new Error(
+          "[Parallel] Capture failed: Worker 0: drawElement worker encode timed out (frame 42)",
+        ),
+      ),
+    ).toBe(true);
     expect(isRecoverableParallelCaptureError(new Error("Encoding failed: ffmpeg exited"))).toBe(
       false,
     );