diff --git a/containers/jug/dev.Dockerfile b/containers/jug/dev.Dockerfile
index 9897c52a08cb7ea65f01f02faa0663bbd5548002..a3e965cbc6b507808015b039b94305947e222b11 100644
--- a/containers/jug/dev.Dockerfile
+++ b/containers/jug/dev.Dockerfile
@@ -311,6 +311,9 @@ mv /usr/._local/${PREFIX_PATH} /usr/local
 ln -s /usr/local /usr/._local/${PREFIX_PATH}
 EOF
 
+## set ROOT TFile forward compatibility
+RUN sed -i 's/# \(TFile.v630forwardCompatibility:\) no/\1 yes/' /usr/local/etc/root/system.rootrc
+
 ## set the local spack configuration
 ENV SPACK_DISABLE_LOCAL_CONFIG="true"
 RUN <<EOF
diff --git a/eic-spack.sh b/eic-spack.sh
index f0d2b6748946ae8c8d2c85a4da3a8eaee4aadcc0..534f82a963d6fd580934e7997d3ba46a99c0060e 100644
--- a/eic-spack.sh
+++ b/eic-spack.sh
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ EICSPACK_ORGREPO="eic/eic-spack"
 
 ## EIC spack commit hash or github version, e.g. v0.19.7
 ## note: nightly builds could use a branch e.g. releases/v0.19
-EICSPACK_VERSION="5a7e0e41ab9a8a6cbeda6b2f2c68129ce178f578"
+EICSPACK_VERSION="23e83fea6641a0771d85cecaae1f9a4f3c084bfb"
 
 ## Space-separated list of eic-spack cherry-picks
 read -r -d '' EICSPACK_CHERRYPICKS <<- \