diff --git a/hack/version.sh b/hack/version.sh
index c2d134c7d07..da128f15e94 100755
--- a/hack/version.sh
+++ b/hack/version.sh
@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@ set -o errexit
 set -o nounset
 set -o pipefail
 
+set -o xtrace
+
 version::get_version_vars() {
     # shellcheck disable=SC1083
     GIT_COMMIT="$(git rev-parse HEAD^{commit})"
@@ -96,4 +98,4 @@ version::ldflags() {
   echo "${ldflags[*]-}"
 }
 
-version::ldflags
\ No newline at end of file
+version::ldflags
diff --git a/test/e2e/azure_clusterproxy.go b/test/e2e/azure_clusterproxy.go
index 26dfba9f6f3..ff29321a5ab 100644
--- a/test/e2e/azure_clusterproxy.go
+++ b/test/e2e/azure_clusterproxy.go
@@ -190,7 +190,14 @@ func (acp *AzureClusterProxy) collectNodes(ctx context.Context, namespace string
 	workload := acp.GetWorkloadCluster(ctx, namespace, name)
 	nodes := &corev1.NodeList{}
 
-	Expect(workload.GetClient().List(ctx, nodes)).To(Succeed())
+	// Failing to collect node logs should not cause the test to fail. The workload cluster
+	// API server may be unreachable during teardown (for example due to a transient Azure
+	// load balancer / DNS issue), and we should not turn an otherwise-successful spec into
+	// a failure during [AfterEach] log collection.
+	if err := workload.GetClient().List(ctx, nodes); err != nil {
+		Logf("Failed to list nodes for workload cluster %s/%s: %v", namespace, name, err)
+		return
+	}
 
 	var err error
 	var nodeDescribe string