diff --git a/src/lerobot/policies/pi052/modeling_pi052.py b/src/lerobot/policies/pi052/modeling_pi052.py
index bcf7f6a18..5a055a5d5 100644
--- a/src/lerobot/policies/pi052/modeling_pi052.py
+++ b/src/lerobot/policies/pi052/modeling_pi052.py
@@ -930,12 +930,23 @@ class PI052Policy(PI05Policy):
         temperature: float = 0.0,
         top_p: float = 1.0,
         tokenizer: Any = None,
+        suppress_loc_tokens: bool = False,
     ) -> str:
         """Generate text continuation from a multimodal prefix.
 
         Mirrors ``SmolVLA2Policy.select_message`` so the same
         :class:`lerobot.policies.smolvla2.inference.SmolVLA2Runtime`
         can drive π0.5 v2 unchanged.
+
+        ``suppress_loc_tokens`` masks PaliGemma's reserved ``<locDDDD>``
+        ids ([256000, 257024)) to ``-inf`` before sampling. PaliGemma's
+        pretraining puts heavy first-token mass on these ids for any
+        ``Assistant:`` continuation; with a small fine-tuning text-CE
+        budget (or aggressive LR decay) the LM head can drift back
+        toward that prior even when teacher-forced argmax stays at
+        100%. Callsites that legitimately emit ``<loc>`` (VQA spatial
+        answers) must keep this ``False``; subtask / memory / plan
+        generation should pass ``True``.
         """
         self.eval()
 
@@ -1015,6 +1026,8 @@ class PI052Policy(PI05Policy):
             if special_ids and len(generated) < min_new_tokens:
                 for sid in special_ids:
                     logits_step[..., sid] = float("-inf")
+            if suppress_loc_tokens:
+                logits_step[..., 256000:257024] = float("-inf")
             next_ids = self._sample_next_token(logits_step, temperature, top_p)
             tok_id = int(next_ids[0].item())
             generated.append(tok_id)
diff --git a/src/lerobot/policies/smolvla2/inference/steps.py b/src/lerobot/policies/smolvla2/inference/steps.py
index 6366103e9..9e624c87c 100644
--- a/src/lerobot/policies/smolvla2/inference/steps.py
+++ b/src/lerobot/policies/smolvla2/inference/steps.py
@@ -484,6 +484,11 @@ class HighLevelSubtaskFwd(InferenceStep):
             min_new_tokens=int(state.get("text_gen_min_new_tokens") or 0),
             temperature=float(state.get("text_gen_temperature") or 0.0),
             top_p=float(state.get("text_gen_top_p") or 1.0),
+            # Subtasks never legitimately contain PaliGemma ``<loc>``
+            # tokens — suppress them so a checkpoint whose LM head
+            # has drifted toward the pretrained loc-prior falls back
+            # to its (still-correct) text mass.
+            suppress_loc_tokens=True,
         )
         # Diagnostics: surface what the model is *actually* producing
         # at chunk boundaries, even when the output gets rejected or
@@ -526,8 +531,16 @@ class HighLevelSubtaskFwd(InferenceStep):
                 )
             return None
         if msg:
+            prev_subtask = state.get("current_subtask")
             changed = set_if_changed(state, "current_subtask", msg, label="subtask")
             if changed:
+                # Stash the just-completed subtask so ``MemoryUpdateFwd``
+                # can drop it into its prompt as ``Completed subtask:``
+                # — the recipe binds ``completed_subtask`` to
+                # ``nth_prev(style=subtask, offset=1)``, i.e. the subtask
+                # that was active *before* the change.
+                if prev_subtask:
+                    state["prior_subtask"] = prev_subtask
                 # Subtask change is a downstream trigger.
                 state.setdefault("events_this_tick", []).append("subtask_change")
                 state["subtask_repeat_count"] = 0
@@ -576,6 +589,7 @@ class MemoryUpdateFwd(InferenceStep):
             observation=observation,
             state=state,
             label="memory gen",
+            suppress_loc_tokens=True,
         )
         state["last_memory_raw"] = new_memory or ""
         if new_memory and _looks_like_gibberish(new_memory):
@@ -619,6 +633,7 @@ class UserInterjectionFwd(InferenceStep):
             observation=observation,
             state=state,
             label="plan/say gen",
+            suppress_loc_tokens=True,
         )
         if not out:
             # Don't log every empty completion — happens repeatedly on
@@ -851,21 +866,34 @@ def _msgs_for_subtask(state: dict[str, Any]) -> list[dict[str, Any]]:
 
 
 def _msgs_for_memory(state: dict[str, Any]) -> list[dict[str, Any]]:
-    """Memory-update prompt — boundary-frame tail of ``high_level_subtask``.
+    """Memory-update prompt — mirrors ``memory_update`` recipe layout.
 
-    Recipe layout on a boundary frame:
-        user:      "${task}\\nPlan: ${plan}\\nMemory: ${memory}"
-        assistant: "${subtask}"
+    Recipe layout (``subtask_mem.yaml``):
+
+        user:      "${task}"
+        assistant: "Previous memory: ${prior_memory}"     (if_present prior)
+        user:      "Completed subtask: ${completed}"       (if_present completed)
         assistant: → predicts new memory
 
-    Fired when the runtime detects a subtask transition; the
-    just-predicted subtask lives in ``state['current_subtask']``.
+    Fired by ``MemoryUpdateFwd`` on a ``subtask_change`` event:
+    ``state['current_memory']`` is the memory the policy last emitted
+    (= the ``prior_memory`` binding at training), and
+    ``state['prior_subtask']`` is the subtask that just got replaced
+    (= the ``completed_subtask`` binding at training).
     """
     msgs: list[dict[str, Any]] = [
-        {"role": "user", "content": _hirobot_user_head(state)},
+        {"role": "user", "content": state.get("task") or ""},
     ]
-    if state.get("current_subtask"):
-        msgs.append({"role": "assistant", "content": state["current_subtask"]})
+    prior_memory = state.get("current_memory")
+    if prior_memory:
+        msgs.append(
+            {"role": "assistant", "content": f"Previous memory: {prior_memory}"}
+        )
+    completed_subtask = state.get("prior_subtask")
+    if completed_subtask:
+        msgs.append(
+            {"role": "user", "content": f"Completed subtask: {completed_subtask}"}
+        )
     return msgs
 
 
@@ -925,6 +953,7 @@ def _generate_with_policy(
     min_new_tokens: int = 0,
     temperature: float = 0.0,
     top_p: float = 1.0,
+    suppress_loc_tokens: bool = False,
 ) -> str:
     """Drive ``policy.select_message`` with a chat batch (and optional obs).
 
@@ -959,13 +988,20 @@ def _generate_with_policy(
             for k, v in observation.items():
                 if isinstance(k, str) and k.startswith("observation.") and k not in batch:
                     batch[k] = v
-        return policy.select_message(
-            batch,
-            tokenizer=text_batch["tokenizer"],
-            min_new_tokens=min_new_tokens,
-            temperature=temperature,
-            top_p=top_p,
-        )
+        kwargs: dict[str, Any] = {
+            "tokenizer": text_batch["tokenizer"],
+            "min_new_tokens": min_new_tokens,
+            "temperature": temperature,
+            "top_p": top_p,
+        }
+        # Only pass ``suppress_loc_tokens`` to backbones that accept it
+        # (pi052). SmolVLA2's ``select_message`` does not, so we omit
+        # the kwarg there to avoid breaking the shared runtime.
+        import inspect  # noqa: PLC0415
+
+        if "suppress_loc_tokens" in inspect.signature(policy.select_message).parameters:
+            kwargs["suppress_loc_tokens"] = suppress_loc_tokens
+        return policy.select_message(batch, **kwargs)
     except Exception as exc:  # noqa: BLE001
         logger.warning("%s failed: %s", label, exc, exc_info=logger.isEnabledFor(logging.DEBUG))
         if state is not None: