diff --git a/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-planner/src/test/java/org/apache/auron/flink/table/kafka/AuronKafkaNoWatermarkITCase.java b/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-planner/src/test/java/org/apache/auron/flink/table/kafka/AuronKafkaNoWatermarkITCase.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..f5f2292e3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-planner/src/test/java/org/apache/auron/flink/table/kafka/AuronKafkaNoWatermarkITCase.java
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.apache.auron.flink.table.kafka;
+
+import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
+
+import java.util.List;
+import org.apache.flink.types.Row;
+import org.apache.flink.util.CollectionUtil;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
+
+/**
+ * Regression IT for an Auron Kafka source without an event-time watermark strategy.
+ * The source must emit all records on the no-watermark path; a source that only marks
+ * itself running when a watermark strategy is present would produce an empty result.
+ */
+public class AuronKafkaNoWatermarkITCase extends AuronKafkaSourceTestBase {
+
+    @Test
+    public void testNoWatermarkSourceEmitsAllRows() {
+        environment.setParallelism(1);
+        List<Row> rows = CollectionUtil.iteratorToList(
+                tableEnvironment.executeSql("SELECT * FROM T5").collect());
+        assertThat(rows).extracting(row -> row.getField(1)).containsExactlyInAnyOrder(20, 21, 22);
+    }
+}
diff --git a/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-planner/src/test/java/org/apache/auron/flink/table/kafka/AuronKafkaSourceTestBase.java b/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-planner/src/test/java/org/apache/auron/flink/table/kafka/AuronKafkaSourceTestBase.java
index 494ab38b7..52720ec19 100644
--- a/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-planner/src/test/java/org/apache/auron/flink/table/kafka/AuronKafkaSourceTestBase.java
+++ b/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-planner/src/test/java/org/apache/auron/flink/table/kafka/AuronKafkaSourceTestBase.java
@@ -124,6 +124,21 @@ public void before() {
                 + "\n 'properties.group.id' = 'flink-test-mock',"
                 + "\n 'format' = 'JSON' "
                 + "\n )");
+
+        // T5: single-partition source with NO watermark strategy. Exercises the
+        // no-watermark emit path, where the source must still produce all records.
+        tableEnvironment.executeSql(" CREATE TABLE T5 ( "
+                + "\n `event_time` BIGINT, "
+                + "\n `age` INT, "
+                + "\n `name` STRING "
+                + "\n ) WITH ( "
+                + "\n 'connector' = 'auron-kafka',"
+                + "\n 'kafka.mock.data' = '" + jsonArray + "',"
+                + "\n 'topic' = 'mock_topic',"
+                + "\n 'properties.bootstrap.servers' = '127.0.0.1:9092',"
+                + "\n 'properties.group.id' = 'flink-test-mock',"
+                + "\n 'format' = 'JSON' "
+                + "\n )");
     }
 
     protected void assertRowsContains(List<Row> actualRows, Object[]... expectedRows) {
diff --git a/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-runtime/src/main/java/org/apache/auron/flink/connector/kafka/AuronKafkaSourceFunction.java b/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-runtime/src/main/java/org/apache/auron/flink/connector/kafka/AuronKafkaSourceFunction.java
index 178f611e2..d32ef73de 100644
--- a/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-runtime/src/main/java/org/apache/auron/flink/connector/kafka/AuronKafkaSourceFunction.java
+++ b/auron-flink-extension/auron-flink-runtime/src/main/java/org/apache/auron/flink/connector/kafka/AuronKafkaSourceFunction.java
@@ -278,8 +278,12 @@ public void open(Configuration config) throws Exception {
                         watermarkStrategy.createWatermarkGenerator(() -> metricGroup);
                 partitionWatermarkTrackers.put(partitionId, new PartitionWatermarkTracker(generator));
             }
-            this.isRunning = true;
         }
+
+        // Mark the source as running only after initialization completes. The run() loop
+        // collects rows only while isRunning is true on both the watermark and no-watermark
+        // paths, so this must be set regardless of whether a watermark strategy is present.
+        this.isRunning = true;
     }
 
     @Override