diff --git a/.circleci/manage-test-db.sh b/.circleci/manage-test-db.sh
index ba1d1070fb..f79072f335 100755
--- a/.circleci/manage-test-db.sh
+++ b/.circleci/manage-test-db.sh
@@ -80,7 +80,11 @@ redshift_down() {
     EXIT_CODE=1
     ATTEMPTS=0
     while [ $EXIT_CODE -ne 0 ] && [ $ATTEMPTS -lt 5 ]; do
-        redshift_exec "select pg_terminate_backend(procpid) from pg_stat_activity where datname = '$1'"
+        # note: sometimes this pg_terminate_backend() call can randomly fail with: ERROR:  Insufficient privileges 
+        # if it does, let's proceed with the drop anyway rather than aborting and never attempting the drop
+        redshift_exec "select pg_terminate_backend(procpid) from pg_stat_activity where datname = '$1'" || true
+        
+        # perform drop
         redshift_exec "drop database $1;" && EXIT_CODE=$? || EXIT_CODE=$?
         if [ $EXIT_CODE -ne 0 ]; then
             echo "Unable to drop database; retrying..."
diff --git a/sqlmesh/core/engine_adapter/fabric.py b/sqlmesh/core/engine_adapter/fabric.py
index 6d7d40c3bb..585622e866 100644
--- a/sqlmesh/core/engine_adapter/fabric.py
+++ b/sqlmesh/core/engine_adapter/fabric.py
@@ -153,6 +153,12 @@ def set_current_catalog(self, catalog_name: str) -> None:
 
         logger.info(f"Switching from catalog '{current_catalog}' to '{catalog_name}'")
 
+        # commit the transaction before closing the connection to help prevent errors like:
+        # > Snapshot isolation transaction failed in database because the object accessed by the statement has been modified by a
+        # > DDL statement in another concurrent transaction since the start of this transaction
+        # on subsequent queries in the new connection
+        self._connection_pool.commit()
+
         # note: we call close() on the connection pool instead of self.close() because self.close() calls close_all()
         # on the connection pool but we just want to close the connection for this thread
         self._connection_pool.close()
diff --git a/tests/conftest.py b/tests/conftest.py
index e4911de80c..b6523f72a4 100644
--- a/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/conftest.py
@@ -245,6 +245,51 @@ def pytest_runtest_makereport(item: pytest.Item, call: pytest.CallInfo):
             )
 
 
+def pytest_configure(config: pytest.Config):
+    # we need to adjust the hook order if pytest-retry is present because it:
+    # - also declares a `pytest_runtest_makereport` with `hookwrapper=True, tryfirst=True`
+    # - this supersedes our one because pytest always loads plugins first and they take precedence over user code
+    #
+    # but, we need our one to run first because it's capturing and ignoring certain errors that cause pytest-retry to fail
+    # and not retry. so we need to adjust the order the hooks are called which pytest does NOT make easy.
+    #
+    # we can't just unload the pytest-retry plugin, load our hook and reload the pytest-retry plugin either.
+    # this causes an error:
+    # > Hook 'pytest_set_excluded_exceptions' is already registered within namespace
+    # because unregister() apparently doesnt unregister plugins cleanly in such a way they can be re-registered
+    #
+    # so what we end up doing below is a small monkey-patch to adjust the call order of the hooks
+    pm = config.pluginmanager
+
+    from pluggy._hooks import HookCaller
+
+    hook_caller: HookCaller = pm.hook.pytest_runtest_makereport
+    hook_impls = hook_caller.get_hookimpls()
+
+    # find the index of our one
+    our_makereport_idx = next(
+        (i for i, v in enumerate(hook_impls) if v.plugin_name.endswith("tests/conftest.py")), None
+    )
+
+    # find the index of the pytest-retry one
+    pytest_retry_makereport_idx = next(
+        (i for i, v in enumerate(hook_impls) if v.plugin_name == "pytest-retry"), None
+    )
+
+    if (
+        pytest_retry_makereport_idx is not None
+        and our_makereport_idx is not None
+        and our_makereport_idx > pytest_retry_makereport_idx
+    ):
+        our_makereport_hook = hook_impls.pop(our_makereport_idx)
+
+        # inject our one to run before the pytest-retry one
+        hook_impls.insert(pytest_retry_makereport_idx, our_makereport_hook)
+
+        # HookCaller doesnt have a setter method for this.
+        hook_caller._hookimpls = hook_impls  # type: ignore
+
+
 # Ignore all local config files
 @pytest.fixture(scope="session", autouse=True)
 def ignore_local_config_files():