diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index dd1a4b07..88b1989c 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ dependencies = [
     "opensearch-py[async] == 2.8.0",
     "uvicorn[standard] == 0.35.0",
     "httpx[http2] == 0.28.1",
+    "httpx-retries",
     "aiohttp[speedups] == 3.12.15",
     "boto3 ~= 1.37",
     "fastapi == 0.116.1",
diff --git a/yente/data/loader.py b/yente/data/loader.py
index 9d9e6f49..b4cc811d 100644
--- a/yente/data/loader.py
+++ b/yente/data/loader.py
@@ -61,19 +61,15 @@ async def read_path_lines(path: Path) -> AsyncGenerator[Any, None]:
 async def stream_http_lines(
     url: str, auth_token: Optional[str] = None
 ) -> AsyncGenerator[Any, None]:
-    for retry in count():
-        try:
-            async with httpx_session(auth_token=auth_token) as client:
-                async with client.stream("GET", url) as resp:
-                    resp.raise_for_status()
-                    async for line in resp.aiter_lines():
-                        yield orjson.loads(line)
-                    return
-        except httpx.TransportError as exc:
-            if retry > 3:
-                raise
-            await asyncio.sleep(1.0)
-            log.error("Streaming index HTTP error: %s, retrying..." % exc)
+    try:
+        async with httpx_session(auth_token=auth_token) as client:
+            async with client.stream("GET", url) as resp:
+                resp.raise_for_status()
+                async for line in resp.aiter_lines():
+                    yield orjson.loads(line)
+                return
+    except httpx.TransportError as exc:
+        log.error("Streaming index HTTP error: %s, failed after retries." % exc)
 
 
 async def load_json_lines(
diff --git a/yente/data/util.py b/yente/data/util.py
index 35129f60..25b724a5 100644
--- a/yente/data/util.py
+++ b/yente/data/util.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 import warnings
 import httpx
 import unicodedata
+from httpx_retries import Retry, RetryTransport
 from pathlib import Path
 from functools import lru_cache
 from urllib.parse import urlparse
@@ -175,7 +176,8 @@ def auth_flow(
 async def httpx_session(
     auth_token: Optional[str] = None,
 ) -> AsyncGenerator[httpx.AsyncClient, None]:
-    transport = httpx.AsyncHTTPTransport(retries=3)
+    retry = Retry(total=3, backoff_factor=2)
+    transport = RetryTransport(transport=httpx.AsyncHTTPTransport(), retry=retry)
     proxy = settings.HTTP_PROXY if settings.HTTP_PROXY != "" else None
     headers = {"User-Agent": f"Yente/{settings.VERSION}"}
     async with httpx.AsyncClient(