diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index e09293e..a08610a 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ uv.lock
 
 # Tests and coverage
 /data/
+/tests/data/scanpy_cache/
 /node_modules/
 /.coverage*
 
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 31b4c11..495a982 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -13,6 +13,9 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning][].
 ### Changed
 - Dropped Python 3.11 support; the minimum supported version is now Python 3.12, aligning with `cellrank` (≥2.1 requires Python ≥3.12) and unpinning the `tutorials` extra from the old `cellrank` 2.0.7 {pr}`81`
 
+### Fixed
+- Fixed intermittent `OSError: Can't synchronously read data (filter returned failure during read)` when running the test suite under `pytest -n auto`, caused by xdist workers racing on scanpy's shared `pbmc3k_raw.h5ad` dataset cache. Each worker now uses its own cache directory.
+
 ## [v0.2.5]
 
 ### Added
diff --git a/tests/conftest.py b/tests/conftest.py
index 63281d1..7168a3c 100644
--- a/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/conftest.py
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+import os
 from pathlib import Path
 
 import numpy as np
@@ -11,6 +12,24 @@
 TESTS_DIR = Path(__file__).parent
 
 
+def pytest_configure(config):
+    """Give each pytest-xdist worker its own scanpy dataset cache directory.
+
+    ``sc.datasets.pbmc3k()`` (used by the ``adata_pbmc3k`` fixture) downloads and
+    reads a single shared cache file (``<datasetdir>/pbmc3k_raw.h5ad``). Under
+    ``pytest -n auto`` multiple worker processes race on that file -- one worker
+    reading it while another is still downloading/writing -- which intermittently
+    surfaces as an HDF5 ``OSError: Can't synchronously read data (filter returned
+    failure during read)``. Pointing each worker at its own cache directory
+    removes the shared-file contention entirely.
+    """
+    worker_id = os.environ.get("PYTEST_XDIST_WORKER")
+    if worker_id is not None:
+        cache_dir = TESTS_DIR / "data" / "scanpy_cache" / worker_id
+        cache_dir.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
+        sc.settings.datasetdir = cache_dir
+
+
 @pytest.fixture
 def sample_distances():
     # 3 samples, 2 neighbors each