diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 0b72ca1c..b0a75207 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@ dependencies = [
   # across numpy 1 and 2 (due to pickle format)
   "numpy >= 1.26",
   "zarr >= 2.17,< 3",
+  # Pinning numcodecs due to https://github.com/zarr-developers/zarr-python/issues/2963
+  "numcodecs[msgpack]!=0.14.0,!=0.14.1,<0.16",
   "click",
   "tabulate",
   "tqdm",
diff --git a/tests/test_vcf_examples.py b/tests/test_vcf_examples.py
index 32170193..31b03ab0 100644
--- a/tests/test_vcf_examples.py
+++ b/tests/test_vcf_examples.py
@@ -1105,7 +1105,7 @@ def test_split_explode(tmp_path):
     pcvcf = vcf2zarr.IntermediateColumnarFormat(out)
     summary_d = pcvcf.fields["POS"].vcf_field.summary.asdict()
     # The compressed size can vary with different numcodecs versions
-    assert summary_d["compressed_size"] == 571 or summary_d["compressed_size"] == 587
+    assert summary_d["compressed_size"] in [571, 573, 587]
     del summary_d["compressed_size"]
     assert summary_d == {
         "num_chunks": 3,