diff --git a/bindings/ruby/ext/ruby_whisper_params.c b/bindings/ruby/ext/ruby_whisper_params.c
index 4a65c92a..624e0080 100644
--- a/bindings/ruby/ext/ruby_whisper_params.c
+++ b/bindings/ruby/ext/ruby_whisper_params.c
@@ -77,6 +77,8 @@ static ID id_vad_params;
 static void
 rb_whisper_callbcack_container_mark(ruby_whisper_callback_container *rwc)
 {
+  if (rwc == NULL) return;
+
   rb_gc_mark(rwc->user_data);
   rb_gc_mark(rwc->callback);
   rb_gc_mark(rwc->callbacks);
diff --git a/examples/bench/bench.cpp b/examples/bench/bench.cpp
index 54f73110..979dca8e 100644
--- a/examples/bench/bench.cpp
+++ b/examples/bench/bench.cpp
@@ -156,6 +156,8 @@ static int whisper_bench_full(const whisper_params & params) {
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
     whisper_params params;
 
     if (whisper_params_parse(argc, argv, params) == false) {
diff --git a/examples/cli/cli.cpp b/examples/cli/cli.cpp
index 2a0f940d..02327ed8 100644
--- a/examples/cli/cli.cpp
+++ b/examples/cli/cli.cpp
@@ -909,6 +909,8 @@ static void output_lrc(struct whisper_context * ctx, std::ofstream & fout, const
 static void cb_log_disable(enum ggml_log_level , const char * , void * ) { }
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
 #if defined(_WIN32)
     // Set the console output code page to UTF-8, while command line arguments
     // are still encoded in the system's code page. In this way, we can print
@@ -988,7 +990,6 @@ int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
     }
 
     // whisper init
-
     struct whisper_context_params cparams = whisper_context_default_params();
 
     cparams.use_gpu    = params.use_gpu;
diff --git a/examples/command/command.cpp b/examples/command/command.cpp
index 9dc8f629..63684044 100644
--- a/examples/command/command.cpp
+++ b/examples/command/command.cpp
@@ -678,6 +678,8 @@ static int process_general_transcription(struct whisper_context * ctx, audio_asy
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
     whisper_params params;
 
     if (whisper_params_parse(argc, argv, params) == false) {
diff --git a/examples/lsp/lsp.cpp b/examples/lsp/lsp.cpp
index a32da511..cf8b75e7 100644
--- a/examples/lsp/lsp.cpp
+++ b/examples/lsp/lsp.cpp
@@ -424,6 +424,8 @@ static void process_loop(struct whisper_context * ctx, audio_async &audio, const
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
     whisper_params params;
     if (whisper_params_parse(argc, argv, params) == false) {
         return 1;
diff --git a/examples/quantize/quantize.cpp b/examples/quantize/quantize.cpp
index 17688380..4dbae205 100644
--- a/examples/quantize/quantize.cpp
+++ b/examples/quantize/quantize.cpp
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 #include "ggml.h"
+#include "ggml-backend.h"
 
 #include "common.h"
 #include "common-ggml.h"
@@ -176,6 +177,8 @@ static bool whisper_model_quantize(const std::string & fname_inp, const std::str
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
     if (argc != 4) {
         fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s model-f32.bin model-quant.bin type\n", argv[0]);
         ggml_print_ftypes(stderr);
diff --git a/examples/server/server.cpp b/examples/server/server.cpp
index bf81f792..8d99ebee 100644
--- a/examples/server/server.cpp
+++ b/examples/server/server.cpp
@@ -516,6 +516,8 @@ void get_req_parameters(const Request & req, whisper_params & params)
 }  // namespace
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
     whisper_params params;
     server_params sparams;
 
diff --git a/examples/stream/stream.cpp b/examples/stream/stream.cpp
index 65c6587d..bc6f13fb 100644
--- a/examples/stream/stream.cpp
+++ b/examples/stream/stream.cpp
@@ -116,6 +116,8 @@ void whisper_print_usage(int /*argc*/, char ** argv, const whisper_params & para
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
     whisper_params params;
 
     if (whisper_params_parse(argc, argv, params) == false) {
diff --git a/examples/talk-llama/talk-llama.cpp b/examples/talk-llama/talk-llama.cpp
index 17ae1c95..b4219c29 100644
--- a/examples/talk-llama/talk-llama.cpp
+++ b/examples/talk-llama/talk-llama.cpp
@@ -291,6 +291,8 @@ The transcript only includes text, it does not include markup like HTML and Mark
 {0}{4})";
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
     whisper_params params;
 
     if (whisper_params_parse(argc, argv, params) == false) {
diff --git a/examples/vad-speech-segments/speech.cpp b/examples/vad-speech-segments/speech.cpp
index 287933bb..26241d95 100644
--- a/examples/vad-speech-segments/speech.cpp
+++ b/examples/vad-speech-segments/speech.cpp
@@ -83,6 +83,8 @@ static bool vad_params_parse(int argc, char ** argv, cli_params & params) {
 static void cb_log_disable(enum ggml_log_level , const char * , void * ) { }
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
     cli_params cli_params;
 
     if (!vad_params_parse(argc, argv, cli_params)) {
diff --git a/examples/wchess/wchess.cmd/wchess.cmd.cpp b/examples/wchess/wchess.cmd/wchess.cmd.cpp
index 4d049976..816eb1b3 100644
--- a/examples/wchess/wchess.cmd/wchess.cmd.cpp
+++ b/examples/wchess/wchess.cmd/wchess.cmd.cpp
@@ -168,6 +168,8 @@ bool get_audio(std::vector<float> & pcmf32_cur) {
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
+    ggml_backend_load_all();
+
     whisper_params params;
 
     if (whisper_params_parse(argc, argv, params) == false) {
diff --git a/src/whisper.cpp b/src/whisper.cpp
index cb887d45..5c4fc9df 100644
--- a/src/whisper.cpp
+++ b/src/whisper.cpp
@@ -206,15 +206,6 @@ static bool ggml_graph_compute_helper(
     return t;
 }
 
-static void whisper_load_backends() {
-#ifdef GGML_BACKEND_DL
-    static std::once_flag flag;
-    std::call_once(flag, []() {
-        ggml_backend_load_all();
-    });
-#endif
-}
-
 // TODO: move these functions to ggml-base with support for ggml-backend?
 
 static ggml_tensor * whisper_set_f32(struct ggml_tensor * t, float v) {
@@ -1322,8 +1313,6 @@ static size_t aheads_masks_nbytes(struct whisper_aheads_masks & aheads_masks) {
 static ggml_backend_t whisper_backend_init_gpu(const whisper_context_params & params) {
     ggml_log_set(g_state.log_callback, g_state.log_callback_user_data);
 
-    whisper_load_backends();
-
     ggml_backend_dev_t dev = nullptr;
 
     int cnt = 0;
@@ -4335,8 +4324,6 @@ static int whisper_has_openvino(void) {
 const char * whisper_print_system_info(void) {
     static std::string s;
 
-    whisper_load_backends();
-
     s  = "";
     s += "WHISPER : ";
     s += "COREML = "    + std::to_string(whisper_has_coreml())     + " | ";
@@ -8154,8 +8141,6 @@ WHISPER_API int whisper_bench_ggml_mul_mat(int n_threads) {
 }
 
 WHISPER_API const char * whisper_bench_ggml_mul_mat_str(int n_threads) {
-    whisper_load_backends();
-
     static std::string s;
     s = "";
     char strbuf[256];