diff --git a/core/gallery/upgrade.go b/core/gallery/upgrade.go
index 43d9d9d30..7abc65a43 100644
--- a/core/gallery/upgrade.go
+++ b/core/gallery/upgrade.go
@@ -58,7 +58,15 @@ func CheckBackendUpgrades(ctx context.Context, galleries []config.Gallery, syste
 // row is flagged upgradeable regardless of whether any node matches the gallery
 // — next Upgrade All realigns the cluster. NodeDrift lists the outliers.
 func CheckUpgradesAgainst(ctx context.Context, galleries []config.Gallery, systemState *system.SystemState, installedBackends SystemBackends) (map[string]UpgradeInfo, error) {
-	galleryBackends, err := AvailableBackends(galleries, systemState)
+	// Unfiltered on purpose. AvailableBackends drops every gallery entry the
+	// *local* host cannot run, and in distributed mode the host running this
+	// check is a CPU-only controller while the GPU backends live on worker
+	// nodes. Filtering there made FindGalleryElement return nil for every
+	// cuda/rocm/l4t entry, so those backends were silently skipped and never
+	// reported an upgrade. Every name we look up here is already installed
+	// somewhere in the cluster, so hardware compatibility has been decided at
+	// install time and re-deciding it against the controller is wrong.
+	galleryBackends, err := AvailableBackendsUnfiltered(galleries, systemState)
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to list available backends: %w", err)
 	}
@@ -254,8 +262,10 @@ func UpgradeBackend(ctx context.Context, systemState *system.SystemState, modelL
 		return UpgradeBackend(ctx, systemState, modelLoader, galleries, installed.Metadata.MetaBackendFor, downloadStatus, requireIntegrity)
 	}
 
-	// Find the gallery entry
-	galleryBackends, err := AvailableBackends(galleries, systemState)
+	// Find the gallery entry. Unfiltered for the same reason as the check
+	// above: backendName is already installed here, so the capability filter
+	// can only reject an entry we must be able to resolve.
+	galleryBackends, err := AvailableBackendsUnfiltered(galleries, systemState)
 	if err != nil {
 		return fmt.Errorf("failed to list available backends: %w", err)
 	}
diff --git a/core/gallery/upgrade_test.go b/core/gallery/upgrade_test.go
index 25d6802c4..ae1be8fcc 100644
--- a/core/gallery/upgrade_test.go
+++ b/core/gallery/upgrade_test.go
@@ -359,6 +359,47 @@ var _ = Describe("Upgrade Detection and Execution", func() {
 			Expect(upgrades).To(HaveKey("my-backend-development"))
 			Expect(upgrades).NotTo(HaveKey("my-alias"))
 		})
+
+		// Hardware-specific backends live on GPU worker nodes while the
+		// controller is typically a CPU-only pod. The gallery candidate set
+		// must therefore NOT be filtered by the controller's own capability:
+		// doing so drops every cuda/rocm/l4t entry, FindGalleryElement
+		// returns nil, and the backend is silently skipped. Observed live:
+		// 48 installed backends, only 5 (all CPU) ever evaluated, while
+		// cuda13-nvidia-l4t-arm64-longcat-video-development sat two versions
+		// behind on a worker.
+		It("flags a GPU-only backend installed on a worker even though the controller is CPU-only", func() {
+			cpuOnlyState := system.NewCapabilityState("default",
+				system.WithBackendPath(backendsPath))
+
+			writeGalleryYAML([]GalleryBackend{
+				{
+					Metadata: Metadata{Name: "cuda13-nvidia-l4t-arm64-longcat-video-development"},
+					URI:      filepath.Join(tempDir, "gpu-source"),
+					Version:  "2.0.0",
+				},
+			})
+
+			installed := SystemBackends{
+				"cuda13-nvidia-l4t-arm64-longcat-video-development": SystemBackend{
+					Name: "cuda13-nvidia-l4t-arm64-longcat-video-development",
+					Metadata: &BackendMetadata{
+						Name:    "cuda13-nvidia-l4t-arm64-longcat-video-development",
+						Version: "1.0.0",
+					},
+					Nodes: []NodeBackendRef{
+						{NodeID: "a", NodeName: "gpu-worker-1", Version: "1.0.0"},
+					},
+				},
+			}
+
+			upgrades, err := CheckUpgradesAgainst(context.Background(), galleries, cpuOnlyState, installed)
+			Expect(err).NotTo(HaveOccurred())
+			Expect(upgrades).To(HaveKey("cuda13-nvidia-l4t-arm64-longcat-video-development"))
+			info := upgrades["cuda13-nvidia-l4t-arm64-longcat-video-development"]
+			Expect(info.InstalledVersion).To(Equal("1.0.0"))
+			Expect(info.AvailableVersion).To(Equal("2.0.0"))
+		})
 	})
 
 	Describe("UpgradeBackend", func() {