diff --git a/tools/server/server.cpp b/tools/server/server.cpp
index 8737fba124..b84c119579 100644
--- a/tools/server/server.cpp
+++ b/tools/server/server.cpp
@@ -2413,7 +2413,7 @@ struct server_context {
 
             params_dft.devices      = params_base.speculative.devices;
             params_dft.model        = params_base.speculative.model;
-            params_dft.n_ctx        = params_base.speculative.n_ctx == 0 ? params_base.n_ctx / params_base.n_parallel : params_base.speculative.n_ctx;
+            params_dft.n_ctx        = params_base.speculative.n_ctx == 0 ? slots.front().n_ctx : params_base.speculative.n_ctx;
             params_dft.n_gpu_layers = params_base.speculative.n_gpu_layers;
             params_dft.n_parallel   = 1;
             params_dft.cache_type_k = params_base.speculative.cache_type_k;
@@ -2501,7 +2501,7 @@ struct server_context {
     }
 
     void init() {
-        const int32_t n_ctx_slot = n_ctx / params_base.n_parallel;
+        const int32_t n_ctx_slot = params_base.kv_unified ? n_ctx : n_ctx / params_base.n_parallel;
 
         SRV_INF("initializing slots, n_slots = %d\n", params_base.n_parallel);
 
@@ -2705,6 +2705,36 @@ struct server_context {
         return ret;
     }
 
+    // return true if at least one slot has been purged
+    // TODO: improve logic
+    //       - smarter decision which slot to purge
+    //       - move slot to level 2 cache instead of removing?
+    //       - instead of purging, try to store and resume later?
+    bool try_purge_idle_slots() {
+        bool res = false;
+
+        if (!params_base.kv_unified) {
+            return res;
+        }
+
+        for (auto & slot : slots) {
+            if (slot.is_processing()) {
+                continue;
+            }
+
+            if (slot.prompt.n_tokens() > 0) {
+                SRV_WRN("purging slot %d with %zu tokens\n", slot.id, slot.prompt.tokens.size());
+
+                llama_memory_seq_rm(llama_get_memory(ctx), slot.id, -1, -1);
+                slot.prompt.tokens.clear();
+
+                res = true;
+            }
+        }
+
+        return res;
+    }
+
     bool launch_slot_with_task(server_slot & slot, server_task && task) {
         slot.reset();
 
@@ -3661,9 +3691,10 @@ struct server_context {
         int32_t n_batch  = llama_n_batch(ctx);
         int32_t n_ubatch = llama_n_ubatch(ctx);
 
-        // next, batch any pending prompts without exceeding n_batch
-        float alora_scale = -1.0f;
+        float  alora_scale       = -1.0f;
         size_t alora_disabled_id = 0;
+
+        // next, batch any pending prompts without exceeding n_batch
         if (params_base.cont_batching || batch.n_tokens == 0) {
             for (auto & slot : slots) {
                 // check if we can batch this slot with the previous one
@@ -4144,6 +4175,8 @@ struct server_context {
                     std::string err;
 
                     if (n_batch == 1 && ret == 1) {
+                        // TODO: try to terminate only the largest active slot and continue
+                        //       need to remove the tokens from the current batch too
                         err = "Context size has been exceeded.";
                     }
 
@@ -4159,17 +4192,23 @@ struct server_context {
                     // TODO: handle ret == 2 (abort) when we start aborting
 
                     if (!err.empty()) {
-                        SRV_ERR("%s, i = %d, n_batch = %d, ret = %d\n", err.c_str(), i, n_batch, ret);
+                        SRV_ERR("%s i = %d, n_batch = %d, ret = %d\n", err.c_str(), i, n_batch, ret);
+
                         for (auto & slot : slots) {
-                            send_error(slot, err);
-                            slot.release();
+                            if (slot.is_processing()) {
+                                send_error(slot, err);
+                                slot.release();
+                            }
                         }
+
                         break;
                     }
                 }
 
                 // retry with half the batch size to try to find a free slot in the KV cache
-                n_batch /= 2;
+                if (!try_purge_idle_slots()) {
+                    n_batch /= 2;
+                }
 
                 SRV_WRN("failed to find free space in the KV cache, retrying with smaller batch size, i = %d, n_batch = %d, ret = %d\n", i, n_batch, ret);
 
@@ -4963,7 +5002,7 @@ int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
                 // Everything else, including multimodal completions.
                 inputs = tokenize_input_prompts(ctx_server.vocab, ctx_server.mctx, prompt, true, true);
             }
-            const size_t n_ctx_slot = ctx_server.n_ctx / ctx_server.params_base.n_parallel;
+            const size_t n_ctx_slot = ctx_server.slots.front().n_ctx;
             tasks.reserve(inputs.size());
             for (size_t i = 0; i < inputs.size(); i++) {
                 auto n_prompt_tokens = inputs[i].size();