diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index db1b0850b..fdec9aaea 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 **Note**: Numbers like (\#123) point to closed Pull Requests on the fractal-tasks-core repository.
 
+# Unreleased
+* Tasks:
+    * Catch `FileNotFoundError` in `apply_registration_to_image` task when race conditions with the reference cycle are hit (\#971).
+
 # 1.5.4
 * Dependencies:
     * Pin `lxml` to `<=5.4.0` (\#963).
diff --git a/fractal_tasks_core/tasks/apply_registration_to_image.py b/fractal_tasks_core/tasks/apply_registration_to_image.py
index 179a731af..1e6831e8d 100644
--- a/fractal_tasks_core/tasks/apply_registration_to_image.py
+++ b/fractal_tasks_core/tasks/apply_registration_to_image.py
@@ -218,6 +218,7 @@ def apply_registration_to_image(
                 except (
                     zarr.errors.GroupNotFoundError,
                     zarr.errors.PathNotFoundError,
+                    FileNotFoundError,
                 ):
                     logger.debug(
                         f"Table {table} not found in attempt {current_round}. "