diff --git a/poetry.lock b/poetry.lock
index df7653367..8310e1ec1 100644
--- a/poetry.lock
+++ b/poetry.lock
@@ -1060,6 +1060,17 @@ files = [
 marshmallow = ">=3.18.0,<4.0.0"
 typing-inspect = ">=0.4.0,<1"
 
+[[package]]
+name = "decorator"
+version = "5.1.1"
+description = "Decorators for Humans"
+optional = false
+python-versions = ">=3.5"
+files = [
+    {file = "decorator-5.1.1-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:b8c3f85900b9dc423225913c5aace94729fe1fa9763b38939a95226f02d37186"},
+    {file = "decorator-5.1.1.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:637996211036b6385ef91435e4fae22989472f9d571faba8927ba8253acbc330"},
+]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "deprecated"
 version = "1.2.14"
@@ -1250,7 +1261,7 @@ standard = ["fastapi", "uvicorn[standard] (>=0.15.0)"]
 name = "ffmpy"
 version = "0.4.0"
 description = "A simple Python wrapper for FFmpeg"
-optional = true
+optional = false
 python-versions = "<4.0.0,>=3.8.1"
 files = [
     {file = "ffmpy-0.4.0-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:39c0f20c5b465e7f8d29a5191f3a7d7675a8c546d9d985de8921151cd9b59e14"},
@@ -3850,8 +3861,6 @@ files = [
     {file = "orjson-3.10.6-cp312-cp312-musllinux_1_2_x86_64.whl", hash = "sha256:960db0e31c4e52fa0fc3ecbaea5b2d3b58f379e32a95ae6b0ebeaa25b93dfd34"},
     {file = "orjson-3.10.6-cp312-none-win32.whl", hash = "sha256:a6ea7afb5b30b2317e0bee03c8d34c8181bc5a36f2afd4d0952f378972c4efd5"},
     {file = "orjson-3.10.6-cp312-none-win_amd64.whl", hash = "sha256:874ce88264b7e655dde4aeaacdc8fd772a7962faadfb41abe63e2a4861abc3dc"},
-    {file = "orjson-3.10.6-cp313-none-win32.whl", hash = "sha256:efdf2c5cde290ae6b83095f03119bdc00303d7a03b42b16c54517baa3c4ca3d0"},
-    {file = "orjson-3.10.6-cp313-none-win_amd64.whl", hash = "sha256:8e190fe7888e2e4392f52cafb9626113ba135ef53aacc65cd13109eb9746c43e"},
     {file = "orjson-3.10.6-cp38-cp38-macosx_10_15_x86_64.macosx_11_0_arm64.macosx_10_15_universal2.whl", hash = "sha256:66680eae4c4e7fc193d91cfc1353ad6d01b4801ae9b5314f17e11ba55e934183"},
     {file = "orjson-3.10.6-cp38-cp38-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl", hash = "sha256:caff75b425db5ef8e8f23af93c80f072f97b4fb3afd4af44482905c9f588da28"},
     {file = "orjson-3.10.6-cp38-cp38-manylinux_2_17_armv7l.manylinux2014_armv7l.whl", hash = "sha256:3722fddb821b6036fd2a3c814f6bd9b57a89dc6337b9924ecd614ebce3271394"},
@@ -4970,6 +4979,20 @@ requests = ">=2.0.0"
 [package.extras]
 rsa = ["oauthlib[signedtoken] (>=3.0.0)"]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "retry-async"
+version = "0.1.4"
+description = ""
+optional = false
+python-versions = ">=3.10,<4.0"
+files = [
+    {file = "retry_async-0.1.4-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:21b383c7bc52013478337b894f476c9f106485cfeeb5d449abe5f745be2da219"},
+    {file = "retry_async-0.1.4.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:8414d69b20920a1d700de34b68c0f972fa36a0158450a6f6abc5b45a241ac6b6"},
+]
+
+[package.dependencies]
+decorator = ">=5.1.1,<6.0.0"
+
 [[package]]
 name = "rich"
 version = "13.7.1"
@@ -6691,4 +6714,4 @@ vector-stores-qdrant = ["llama-index-vector-stores-qdrant"]
 [metadata]
 lock-version = "2.0"
 python-versions = ">=3.11,<3.12"
-content-hash = "2eaa56bf185723ad028f5221675f1ee070bc70ba7d606ebe28dcfe276a3c9dca"
+content-hash = "45264d80672084e35ca0ea11b368a29001a3b9003822bddc67fb18489a8fe519"
diff --git a/private_gpt/utils/ollama.py b/private_gpt/utils/ollama.py
index 9c75a875a..da9107bff 100644
--- a/private_gpt/utils/ollama.py
+++ b/private_gpt/utils/ollama.py
@@ -3,10 +3,13 @@
 from collections.abc import Iterator, Mapping
 from typing import Any
 
+from httpx import ConnectError
 from tqdm import tqdm  # type: ignore
 
+from private_gpt.utils.retry import retry
+
 try:
-    from ollama import Client  # type: ignore
+    from ollama import Client, ResponseError  # type: ignore
 except ImportError as e:
     raise ImportError(
         "Ollama dependencies not found, install with `poetry install --extras llms-ollama or embeddings-ollama`"
@@ -14,13 +17,25 @@
 
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
+_MAX_RETRIES = 5
+_JITTER = (3.0, 10.0)
+
 
+@retry(
+    is_async=False,
+    exceptions=(ConnectError, ResponseError),
+    tries=_MAX_RETRIES,
+    jitter=_JITTER,
+    logger=logger,
+)
 def check_connection(client: Client) -> bool:
     try:
         client.list()
         return True
+    except (ConnectError, ResponseError) as e:
+        raise e
     except Exception as e:
-        logger.error(f"Failed to connect to Ollama: {e!s}")
+        logger.error(f"Failed to connect to Ollama: {type(e).__name__}: {e!s}")
         return False
 
 
diff --git a/private_gpt/utils/retry.py b/private_gpt/utils/retry.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..614b6803d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/private_gpt/utils/retry.py
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+import logging
+from collections.abc import Callable
+from typing import Any
+
+from retry_async import retry as retry_untyped  # type: ignore
+
+retry_logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+
+
+def retry(
+    exceptions: Any = Exception,
+    *,
+    is_async: bool = False,
+    tries: int = -1,
+    delay: float = 0,
+    max_delay: float | None = None,
+    backoff: float = 1,
+    jitter: float | tuple[float, float] = 0,
+    logger: logging.Logger = retry_logger,
+) -> Callable[..., Any]:
+    wrapped = retry_untyped(
+        exceptions=exceptions,
+        is_async=is_async,
+        tries=tries,
+        delay=delay,
+        max_delay=max_delay,
+        backoff=backoff,
+        jitter=jitter,
+        logger=logger,
+    )
+    return wrapped  # type: ignore
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 17a7c6985..da9fab80a 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -66,6 +66,7 @@ ollama = {version ="^0.3.0", optional = true}
 
 # Optional HF Transformers
 einops = {version = "^0.8.0", optional = true}
+retry-async = "^0.1.4"
 
 [tool.poetry.extras]
 ui = ["gradio", "ffmpy"]