diff --git a/ci/build_docs.sh b/ci/build_docs.sh
index b94c61cc184..4b6391be82c 100755
--- a/ci/build_docs.sh
+++ b/ci/build_docs.sh
@@ -34,6 +34,11 @@ rapids-mamba-retry install \
 
 export RAPIDS_DOCS_DIR="$(mktemp -d)"
 
+# TODO: Disable hard errors until the docs site is accessible (network problems)
+EXITCODE=0
+trap "EXITCODE=1" ERR
+set +e
+
 rapids-logger "Build CPP docs"
 pushd cpp/doxygen
 aws s3 cp s3://rapidsai-docs/librmm/html/${RAPIDS_VERSION_NUMBER}/rmm.tag . || echo "Failed to download rmm Doxygen tag"
@@ -66,4 +71,11 @@ if [[ "${RAPIDS_BUILD_TYPE}" != "pull-request" ]]; then
 fi
 popd
 
-rapids-upload-docs
+if [[ "${EXITCODE}" == "0" ]]; then
+  rapids-upload-docs
+else
+  rapids-logger "Docs script had errors resulting in exit code $EXITCODE"
+fi
+
+# TODO: Disable hard errors until the docs site is accessible (network problems)
+exit 0
diff --git a/python/cudf/cudf/core/column/column.py b/python/cudf/cudf/core/column/column.py
index b7080ff7a7c..3e0ec4b5cd7 100644
--- a/python/cudf/cudf/core/column/column.py
+++ b/python/cudf/cudf/core/column/column.py
@@ -975,9 +975,12 @@ def astype(self, dtype: Dtype, copy: bool = False) -> ColumnBase:
             # TODO: Figure out why `cudf.dtype("category")`
             # astype's different than just the string
             return col.as_categorical_column(dtype)
-        elif dtype == "interval" and isinstance(
-            self.dtype, cudf.IntervalDtype
+        elif (
+            isinstance(dtype, str)
+            and dtype == "interval"
+            and isinstance(self.dtype, cudf.IntervalDtype)
         ):
+            # astype("interval") (the string only) should no-op
             return col
         was_object = dtype == object or dtype == np.dtype(object)
         dtype = cudf.dtype(dtype)