diff --git a/src/proxy/middleware/request/transform-outbound-payload.ts b/src/proxy/middleware/request/transform-outbound-payload.ts
index 042ff83..887f39d 100644
--- a/src/proxy/middleware/request/transform-outbound-payload.ts
+++ b/src/proxy/middleware/request/transform-outbound-payload.ts
@@ -57,9 +57,9 @@ const OpenAIV1ChatCompletionSchema = z.object({
   max_tokens: z.coerce
     .number()
     .int()
-    .optional()
+    .nullish()
     .default(16)
-    .transform((v) => Math.min(v, OPENAI_OUTPUT_MAX)),
+    .transform((v) => Math.min(v ?? OPENAI_OUTPUT_MAX, OPENAI_OUTPUT_MAX)),
   frequency_penalty: z.number().optional().default(0),
   presence_penalty: z.number().optional().default(0),
   logit_bias: z.any().optional(),
diff --git a/src/proxy/queue.ts b/src/proxy/queue.ts
index 3d8e811..91eb4a2 100644
--- a/src/proxy/queue.ts
+++ b/src/proxy/queue.ts
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ export function enqueue(req: Request) {
     }
     req.heartbeatInterval = setInterval(() => {
       if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "production") {
-        req.res!.write(": queue heartbeat\n\n");
+        if (!req.query.badSseParser) req.res!.write(": queue heartbeat\n\n");
       } else {
         req.log.info(`Sending heartbeat to request in queue.`);
         const partition = getPartitionForRequest(req);
@@ -340,6 +340,14 @@ function initStreaming(req: Request) {
   res.setHeader("Connection", "keep-alive");
   res.setHeader("X-Accel-Buffering", "no"); // nginx-specific fix
   res.flushHeaders();
+
+  if (req.query.badSseParser) {
+    // Some clients have a broken SSE parser that doesn't handle comments
+    // correctly. These clients can pass ?badSseParser=true to
+    // disable comments in the SSE stream.
+    return;
+  }
+
   res.write("\n");
   res.write(": joining queue\n\n");
 }