diff --git a/tests_notebooks/conftest.py b/tests_notebooks/conftest.py
index bb658f57a..4a43da646 100644
--- a/tests_notebooks/conftest.py
+++ b/tests_notebooks/conftest.py
@@ -77,7 +77,9 @@ def notebook_service(docker_ip, docker_services, aiidalab_exec):
     output = aiidalab_exec("verdi --version").decode("utf-8").strip()
     after_version = output.split(" ")[-1]
 
-    assert before_version != after_version
+    assert (
+        before_version == after_version
+    ), f"aiida-core version was changed from {before_version} to {after_version}."
 
     # `port_for` takes a container port and returns the corresponding host port
     port = docker_services.port_for("aiidalab", 8888)
diff --git a/tests_notebooks/docker-compose.yml b/tests_notebooks/docker-compose.yml
index 0192d117d..01fa84d9f 100644
--- a/tests_notebooks/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/tests_notebooks/docker-compose.yml
@@ -4,7 +4,13 @@ version: '3.4'
 services:
 
     aiidalab:
-        image: ghcr.io/aiidalab/full-stack:${TAG:-latest}
+        # TODO: after the oldest aiida-core supported version is v2.4.0,
+        # move to use ghcr.io registry to pull the image, the dockerhub registry has
+        # a rate limit of 100 pulls per 6 hours.
+        # aiida-core < 2.4.0 is not push to ghcr.io because of CI issues
+        # The CI is fixed in https://github.com/aiidalab/aiidalab-docker-stack/pull/390 and
+        # from aiida-core 2.4.0 the images are pushed to ghcr.io.
+        image: aiidalab/full-stack:${TAG:-latest}
         environment:
             RMQHOST: messaging
             TZ: Europe/Zurich