diff --git a/ansible/files/admin_api_scripts/pg_upgrade_scripts/initiate.sh b/ansible/files/admin_api_scripts/pg_upgrade_scripts/initiate.sh
index 6998376a5..2d0909ec4 100755
--- a/ansible/files/admin_api_scripts/pg_upgrade_scripts/initiate.sh
+++ b/ansible/files/admin_api_scripts/pg_upgrade_scripts/initiate.sh
@@ -375,13 +375,16 @@ EXTRA_NIX_CONF
 
     # Fixing erros generated by previous dpkg executions (package upgrades et co)
     echo "2. Fixing potential errors generated by dpkg"
+    echo "2.1 Killing off any old hanging apt-get processes"
+    # One hour is old enough to be bad
+    pkill -f apt-get --older 3600 2>/dev/null || echo "No hanging apt-get processes found"
     DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive dpkg --configure -a --force-confold || true # handle errors generated by dpkg
 
     # Needed for PostGIS, since it's compiled with Protobuf-C support now
     echo "3. Installing libprotobuf-c1 and libicu66 if missing"
     if [[ ! "$(apt list --installed libprotobuf-c1 | grep "installed")" ]]; then
-        apt-get update -y
-        apt --fix-broken install -y libprotobuf-c1 libicu66 || true
+        apt-get -o DPkg::Lock::Timeout=600 update -y # wait up to 10 minutes for any dpkg locks to clear before updating package lists
+        apt --fix-broken install -y libprotobuf-c1 libicu66 || true # apt has builtin 2 minute wait lock
     fi
 
     echo "4. Setup locale if required"
@@ -400,8 +403,8 @@ EXTRA_NIX_CONF
         UBUNTU_VERSION=$(lsb_release -rs)
         # install amazon disk utilities if not present on 24.04
         if [ "${UBUNTU_VERSION}" = "24.04" ] && ! /usr/bin/dpkg-query -W amazon-ec2-utils >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-            apt-get update
-            apt-get install -y amazon-ec2-utils || true
+            apt-get -o DPkg::Lock::Timeout=600 update
+            apt-get -o DPkg::Lock::Timeout=600 install -y amazon-ec2-utils || true
         fi
         if command -v ebsnvme-id >/dev/null 2>&1 && /usr/bin/dpkg-query -W amazon-ec2-utils >/dev/null 2>&1; then
             for nvme_dev in $(lsblk -dprno name,size,mountpoint,type | grep disk | awk '{print $1}'); do