diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index d72ce98..1c10138 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -68,7 +68,13 @@ set(DRAGONX_LITE_BACKEND_REQUIRED_SYMBOLS
 if(DRAGONX_BUILD_LITE)
     set(DRAGONX_APP_NAME "ObsidianDragonLite")
     set(DRAGONX_BINARY_NAME "ObsidianDragonLite")
-    set(DRAGONX_ENABLE_EMBEDDED_DAEMON OFF CACHE BOOL "Enable embedded dragonxd support" FORCE)
+    # NOTE: do NOT FORCE-write DRAGONX_ENABLE_EMBEDDED_DAEMON=OFF into the cache here. A forced
+    # cache write persists into a later full-node reconfigure of the same build dir and silently
+    # disables the embedded daemon — the binary still embeds/extracts, but isUsingEmbeddedDaemon()
+    # returns false, so it "unpacks dragonxd but never starts" (the 1.3.0 regression). It is also
+    # redundant: makeWalletCapabilities() already forces the embedded-daemon capability off for any
+    # lite build via `fullNodeBuild && embeddedDaemonCompiled`, so lite never launches a daemon
+    # regardless of this flag. build.sh sets the flag explicitly per variant to defeat stale caches.
     set(DRAGONX_APP_VERSION "${DRAGONX_LITE_VERSION}")
     set(DRAGONX_APP_VERSION_SUFFIX "${DRAGONX_LITE_VERSION_SUFFIX}")
 else()
diff --git a/build.sh b/build.sh
index e43c08d..c107a4d 100755
--- a/build.sh
+++ b/build.sh
@@ -116,9 +116,15 @@ CMAKE_LITE_ARGS=()
 if $DO_LITE; then
     APP_BASENAME="ObsidianDragonLite"
     CMAKE_LITE_ARGS+=("-DDRAGONX_BUILD_LITE=ON")
+    # Lite never embeds/launches a daemon; set it explicitly too for cache hygiene.
+    CMAKE_LITE_ARGS+=("-DDRAGONX_ENABLE_EMBEDDED_DAEMON=OFF")
     info "Lite mode enabled: building ${APP_BASENAME}"
 else
     CMAKE_LITE_ARGS+=("-DDRAGONX_BUILD_LITE=OFF")
+    # Re-assert the embedded daemon ON for full-node builds, EXPLICITLY, so a build dir whose cache
+    # was poisoned OFF by a prior --lite configure (or any stale value) is healed — otherwise the
+    # full-node app extracts dragonxd but never launches it (isUsingEmbeddedDaemon() == false).
+    CMAKE_LITE_ARGS+=("-DDRAGONX_ENABLE_EMBEDDED_DAEMON=ON")
 fi
 
 # Resolve the release version string for the active variant from CMakeLists.txt (single source of