diff --git a/extensions-core/kafka-indexing-service/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/indexing/kafka/simulate/EmbeddedKafkaSupervisorTest.java b/extensions-core/kafka-indexing-service/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/indexing/kafka/simulate/EmbeddedKafkaSupervisorTest.java
index 6afb70a79a40..ea0a3ca49ff8 100644
--- a/extensions-core/kafka-indexing-service/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/indexing/kafka/simulate/EmbeddedKafkaSupervisorTest.java
+++ b/extensions-core/kafka-indexing-service/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/indexing/kafka/simulate/EmbeddedKafkaSupervisorTest.java
@@ -215,8 +215,9 @@ public void test_runKafkaSupervisorWithHeaderFiltering()
     Assertions.assertTrue(supervisorStatus.isHealthy());
     Assertions.assertEquals("RUNNING", supervisorStatus.getState());
 
-    // Suspend the supervisor and wait for segment handoff
-    cluster.callApi().postSupervisor(kafkaSupervisorSpec.createSuspendedSpec());
+    // Wait for segment handoff without suspending the supervisor; its short task duration publishes the segments.
+    // Suspending while ingestion is in progress can replace the supervisor while the task's checkpoint request is in
+    // flight, which fails the task before it publishes anything.
     indexer.latchableEmitter().waitForEventAggregate(
         event -> event.hasMetricName("ingest/handoff/count")
                       .hasDimension(DruidMetrics.DATASOURCE, dataSource),
@@ -345,24 +346,8 @@ private KafkaSupervisorSpec createKafkaSupervisorWithHeaderFilter(String supervi
     InDimFilter filter = new InDimFilter("environment", ImmutableSet.of("production"));
     KafkaHeaderBasedFilterConfig headerFilterConfig = new KafkaHeaderBasedFilterConfig(filter, "UTF-8", 1000);
 
-    return new KafkaSupervisorSpecBuilder()
-        .withDataSchema(
-            schema -> schema
-                .withTimestamp(new TimestampSpec("timestamp", null, null))
-                .withDimensions(DimensionsSpec.EMPTY)
-        )
-        .withTuningConfig(
-            tuningConfig -> tuningConfig
-                .withMaxRowsPerSegment(1)
-                .withReleaseLocksOnHandoff(true)
-        )
-        .withIoConfig(
-            ioConfig -> ioConfig
-                .withInputFormat(new CsvInputFormat(List.of("timestamp", "item"), null, null, false, 0, false))
-                .withConsumerProperties(kafkaServer.consumerProperties())
-                .withUseEarliestSequenceNumber(true)
-                .withHeaderBasedFilterConfig(headerFilterConfig)
-        )
+    return newKafkaSupervisor()
+        .withIoConfig(ioConfig -> ioConfig.withHeaderBasedFilterConfig(headerFilterConfig))
         .withId(supervisorId)
         .build(dataSource, topic);
   }