diff --git a/test/units/TEST-82-SOFTREBOOT.sh b/test/units/TEST-82-SOFTREBOOT.sh
index 03f6b78e57..778bdbd7f8 100755
--- a/test/units/TEST-82-SOFTREBOOT.sh
+++ b/test/units/TEST-82-SOFTREBOOT.sh
@@ -190,6 +190,17 @@ elif [ -f /run/TEST-82-SOFTREBOOT.touch ]; then
     test "$(systemctl show -P ActiveState TEST-82-SOFTREBOOT-nosurvive-sigterm.service)" != "active"
     test "$(systemctl show -P ActiveState TEST-82-SOFTREBOOT-nosurvive.service)" != "active"
 
+    # Regression test for #41789: the lingering user enabled on the first boot must
+    # have its user@.service started again after the soft reboot. Before the fix it
+    # was GC'd at logind startup and never restarted. Disable lingering again here,
+    # before the nextroot switch below (the third boot runs on a minimal overlay
+    # rootfs that does not have this user). terminate-user is best-effort: it can
+    # race the asynchronous disable-linger/UserStopDelaySec teardown.
+    linger_uid=$(id -u testuser)
+    timeout 30 bash -c "until systemctl is-active --quiet user@${linger_uid}.service; do sleep 1; done"
+    loginctl disable-linger testuser
+    loginctl terminate-user testuser || true
+
     # This time we test the /run/nextroot/ root switching logic. (We synthesize a new rootfs from the old via overlayfs)
     mkdir -p /run/nextroot /tmp/nextroot-lower /original-root
     mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /tmp/nextroot-lower
@@ -313,6 +324,18 @@ EOF
         systemd-run --wait false || true
     done
 
+    # Regression test for #41789: a lingering user's user@.service must come back
+    # after a soft reboot, the same way it does after a hardware reboot. It used
+    # to be garbage-collected at logind startup (before user_start() ran), because
+    # /run/systemd/users is preserved across soft-reboot and fed the user into the
+    # GC queue while its units were not active yet. Enable lingering for the
+    # pre-existing testuser here; the second boot asserts the service is active
+    # again. testuser lives in the persistent rootfs, so it survives the
+    # (non-nextroot) soft reboot into the second boot.
+    loginctl enable-linger testuser
+    linger_uid=$(id -u testuser)
+    timeout 30 bash -c "until systemctl is-active --quiet user@${linger_uid}.service; do sleep 1; done"
+
     trigger_uevent
 
     # Now issue the soft reboot. We should be right back soon.