diff --git a/salt/common/tools/sbin/so-common b/salt/common/tools/sbin/so-common
index aca8496f5..4bccfdbb9 100755
--- a/salt/common/tools/sbin/so-common
+++ b/salt/common/tools/sbin/so-common
@@ -162,6 +162,29 @@ check_salt_master_status() {
     return 0
 }
 
+# Wait until $minion shows up in the salt master's unaccepted-keys list.
+# Used after saltify on a reinstall to replace the old `sleep 2 / state.show_top /
+# sleep 2` dance — the new minion's key takes longer to appear than 2s on
+# salt 3006.x and the subsequent salt-key -ya needs something to accept.
+# Returns 0 as soon as the key is pending, 1 after attempts*delay seconds.
+wait_for_minion_key_pending() {
+	local minion="$1"
+	local attempts="${2:-30}"
+	local delay="${3:-2}"
+	local count=0
+	while ! salt-key -l pre --out=json 2>/dev/null \
+		| python3 -c "import json,sys; d=json.load(sys.stdin); sys.exit(0 if '$minion' in d.get('minions_pre', []) else 1)" 2>/dev/null; do
+		((count+=1))
+		if [[ $count -ge $attempts ]]; then
+			echo "Gave up waiting for $minion to appear in salt-master's pending keys"
+			return 1
+		fi
+		sleep "$delay"
+	done
+	echo "Minion $minion is pending acceptance after $((count * delay))s"
+	return 0
+}
+
 # this is only intended to be used to check the status of the minion from a salt master
 check_salt_minion_status() {
 	local minion="$1"
diff --git a/setup/so-functions b/setup/so-functions
index 2b7acf9a9..c7176cc4a 100755
--- a/setup/so-functions
+++ b/setup/so-functions
@@ -1550,6 +1550,19 @@ reinstall_init() {
 	local service_retry_count=20
 
 	{
+		# Snapshot pre-reinstall salt state before any destructive step so a
+		# failed reinstall leaves a usable post-mortem in the setup log.
+		echo "=== pre-reinstall salt diagnostic $(date -Iseconds) ==="
+		systemctl status salt-master --no-pager 2>&1 | head -40 || true
+		systemctl status salt-minion --no-pager 2>&1 | head -40 || true
+		journalctl -u salt-master --no-pager --since "-10 minutes" 2>&1 | tail -80 || true
+		journalctl -u salt-minion --no-pager --since "-10 minutes" 2>&1 | tail -80 || true
+		ls -laR /etc/salt 2>&1 | head -60 || true
+		ls -la /var/cache/salt 2>&1 | head -40 || true
+		[[ -f /etc/salt/master.rpmnew ]] && diff -u /etc/salt/master /etc/salt/master.rpmnew 2>&1 | head -80 || true
+		[[ -f /etc/salt/minion.rpmnew ]] && diff -u /etc/salt/minion /etc/salt/minion.rpmnew 2>&1 | head -40 || true
+		echo "=== end diagnostic ==="
+
 		# remove all of root's cronjobs
 		crontab -r -u root
 
@@ -1580,7 +1593,7 @@ reinstall_init() {
 					kill -9 $pid
 					fail_setup
 				fi
-				
+
 				sleep 5
 				((count++))
 			done
diff --git a/setup/so-setup b/setup/so-setup
index 46b11fc11..7b5abd61f 100755
--- a/setup/so-setup
+++ b/setup/so-setup
@@ -724,10 +724,18 @@ if ! [[ -f $install_opt_file ]]; then
 		# Install salt
 		saltify
 		check_sos_appliance
+		# Wait for salt-master to be actually running and have its PKI
+		# ready after a fresh saltify. Without this, salt-key operations
+		# silently race the daemon and the key accept no-ops, which is
+		# what was causing reinstalls on 3.x to hang on state.show_top.
+		retry 30 2 "test -f /etc/salt/pki/master/master.pub" \
+			|| fail "salt-master did not initialize PKI after saltify"
+		check_salt_master_status \
+			|| fail "salt-master not accepting calls after saltify"
+
 		logCmd "salt-key -yd $MINION_ID"
-		sleep 2 # Debug RSA Key format errors
-		logCmd "salt-call state.show_top"
-		sleep 2 # Debug RSA Key format errors
+		wait_for_minion_key_pending "$MINION_ID" 30 2 \
+			|| fail "salt-minion never presented its key to salt-master"
 		logCmd "salt-key -ya $MINION_ID"
 		logCmd "salt-call saltutil.sync_all"
 		# we need to sync the runner and generate the soqemussh user keys so that first highstate after license created