diff --git a/llama_stack/providers/remote/inference/ollama/ollama.py b/llama_stack/providers/remote/inference/ollama/ollama.py
index 1fbc9e747..cdd41e372 100644
--- a/llama_stack/providers/remote/inference/ollama/ollama.py
+++ b/llama_stack/providers/remote/inference/ollama/ollama.py
@@ -348,6 +348,9 @@ class OllamaInferenceAdapter(
         top_p: Optional[float] = None,
         user: Optional[str] = None,
     ) -> OpenAICompletion:
+        if not isinstance(prompt, str):
+            raise ValueError("Ollama does not support non-string prompts for completion")
+
         model_obj = await self._get_model(model)
         params = {
             k: v
diff --git a/tests/integration/inference/test_openai_completion.py b/tests/integration/inference/test_openai_completion.py
index fe368b20f..78df64af0 100644
--- a/tests/integration/inference/test_openai_completion.py
+++ b/tests/integration/inference/test_openai_completion.py
@@ -53,9 +53,11 @@ def openai_client(client_with_models, text_model_id):
 def test_openai_completion_non_streaming(openai_client, text_model_id, test_case):
     tc = TestCase(test_case)
 
+    # ollama needs more verbose prompting for some reason here...
+    prompt = "Respond to this question and explain your answer. " + tc["content"]
     response = openai_client.completions.create(
         model=text_model_id,
-        prompt=tc["content"],
+        prompt=prompt,
         stream=False,
     )
     assert len(response.choices) > 0
@@ -72,9 +74,11 @@ def test_openai_completion_non_streaming(openai_client, text_model_id, test_case
 def test_openai_completion_streaming(openai_client, text_model_id, test_case):
     tc = TestCase(test_case)
 
+    # ollama needs more verbose prompting for some reason here...
+    prompt = "Respond to this question and explain your answer. " + tc["content"]
     response = openai_client.completions.create(
         model=text_model_id,
-        prompt=tc["content"],
+        prompt=prompt,
         stream=True,
         max_tokens=50,
     )