diff --git a/app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.draft.$seasonId.tsx b/app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.draft.$seasonId.tsx
index 52846c1..ac58bd3 100644
--- a/app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.draft.$seasonId.tsx
+++ b/app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.draft.$seasonId.tsx
@@ -271,10 +271,14 @@ export default function DraftRoom() {
   }, [reconnectCount, revalidate]);
 
   // Guard against Clerk JWT expiry race: if the loader ran without a userId (expired
-  // short-lived JWT) but the Clerk client SDK has a valid session, revalidate so the
-  // loader re-runs with a fresh token and returns correct userTeam/userQueue data.
+  // short-lived JWT) but the Clerk client SDK has a valid session, revalidate once so
+  // the loader re-runs with a fresh token and returns correct userTeam/userQueue data.
+  // The ref prevents an infinite loop if the server consistently fails to return a
+  // userId (e.g. misconfigured secret key) — we only attempt this recovery once.
+  const authRevalidatedRef = useRef(false);
   useEffect(() => {
-    if (clerkUserId && !currentUserId) {
+    if (clerkUserId && !currentUserId && !authRevalidatedRef.current) {
+      authRevalidatedRef.current = true;
       revalidate();
     }
   }, [clerkUserId, currentUserId, revalidate]);