diff --git a/tests/hostside/java/android/virt/test/MicrodroidTestCase.java b/tests/hostside/java/android/virt/test/MicrodroidTestCase.java
index 67f48a3..364464f 100644
--- a/tests/hostside/java/android/virt/test/MicrodroidTestCase.java
+++ b/tests/hostside/java/android/virt/test/MicrodroidTestCase.java
@@ -101,6 +101,10 @@
                 false);
     }
 
+    private void waitForBootComplete() {
+        runOnMicrodroidForResult("watch -e \"getprop dev.bootcomplete | grep '^0$'\"");
+    }
+
     // Wait until logd-init starts. The service is one of the last services that are started in
     // the microdroid boot procedure. Therefore, waiting for the service means that we wait for
     // the boot to complete. TODO: we need a better marker eventually.
@@ -380,17 +384,25 @@
                         Optional.of(NUM_VCPUS),
                         Optional.of(CPU_AFFINITY));
         adbConnectToMicrodroid(getDevice(), cid);
-        waitForLogdInit();
-        runOnMicrodroid("logcat -c");
+        waitForBootComplete();
+        runOnMicrodroidRetryingOnFailure(
+                MICRODROID_COMMAND_TIMEOUT_MILLIS, MICRODROID_ADB_CONNECT_MAX_ATTEMPTS, "true");
         // We need root permission to write to /data/tombstones/
         rootMicrodroid();
         // Write a test tombstone file in /data/tombstones
         runOnMicrodroid("echo -n \'Test tombstone in VM with 34 bytes\'"
                     + "> /data/tombstones/transmit.txt");
-        // check if the tombstone have been tranferred from VM
-        assertNotEquals(runOnMicrodroid("timeout 15s logcat | grep -m 1 "
-                            + "'tombstone_transmit.microdroid:.*data/tombstones/transmit.txt'"),
-                "");
+        // check if the tombstone have been tranferred from VM. This is a bit flaky - increasing
+        // timeout to 30s can result in SIGKILL inside microdroid due to logcat memory issue
+        CommandRunner android = new CommandRunner(getDevice());
+        android.runWithTimeout(
+                15000,
+                "grep",
+                "-m",
+                "1",
+                "'tombstone_transmit.microdroid:.*data/tombstones/transmit.txt'",
+                LOG_PATH);
+
         // Confirm that tombstone is received (from host logcat)
         assertNotEquals(runOnHost("adb", "-s", getDevice().getSerialNumber(),
                             "logcat", "-d", "-e",
@@ -435,7 +447,9 @@
         assertThat(runOnMicrodroid("ls", "-Z", testLib), is(label + " " + testLib));
 
         // Check that no denials have happened so far
-        assertThat(runOnMicrodroid("logcat -d -e 'avc:[[:space:]]{1,2}denied'"), is(""));
+        CommandRunner android = new CommandRunner(getDevice());
+        assertThat(android.tryRun("egrep", "'avc:[[:space:]]{1,2}denied'", LOG_PATH),
+                is(nullValue()));
 
         assertThat(runOnMicrodroid("cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor | wc -l"),
                 is(Integer.toString(NUM_VCPUS)));