couple of fixes and improvements #1758

Job	Run time
build-test-downstream (ubuntu-24.04, gcc-14)	2m 41s
build-test-downstream (ubuntu-24.04, clang-18)	2m 48s
build-test-downstream (macos-13, clang-14)	3m 4s
build (ubuntu-24.04, clang-18)	5m 20s
build-test-downstream (windows-2022, msvc-1940)	2m 59s
build-test-downstream (macos-14, armv8-clang-14)	2m 10s
build (macos-13, clang-14)	7m 11s
build (windows-2022, msvc-1940)	3m 18s
build (ubuntu-24.04, gcc-14)	5m 29s
build (macos-14, armv8-clang-14)	3m 47s
test	-1s
docker	-1s
	38m 45s

Provide feedback