diff --git a/vtk.changes b/vtk.changes
index 10a9fc6..fcf391a 100644
--- a/vtk.changes
+++ b/vtk.changes
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+-------------------------------------------------------------------
+Tue Apr 10 11:56:22 UTC 2018 - adrian@suse.de
+
+- use hdf5 1.8 explicit to avoid incompatible data
+
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 Sun Feb  4 00:41:17 UTC 2018 - stefan.bruens@rwth-aachen.de
 
diff --git a/vtk.spec b/vtk.spec
index 4088437..71631b8 100644
--- a/vtk.spec
+++ b/vtk.spec
@@ -60,7 +60,8 @@ BuildRequires:  gcc-c++
 BuildRequires:  gl2ps-devel
 BuildRequires:  gnuplot
 BuildRequires:  graphviz
-BuildRequires:  hdf5-devel
+# hdf5 1.10 is on disk incompatible
+BuildRequires:  hdf5-1_8-devel
 BuildRequires:  java-devel
 BuildRequires:  libX11-devel
 BuildRequires:  libXt-devel
@@ -138,7 +139,7 @@ Requires:       %{shlib} = %{version}
 Requires:       Mesa-libGL-devel
 Requires:       R-base-devel
 Requires:       gl2ps-devel
-Requires:       hdf5-devel
+Requires:       hdf5-1_8-devel
 # jsoncpp available for openSUSE > 13.2 & Leap
 %if 0%{?suse_version} > 1320 || 0%{suse_version} == 1315
 Requires:       jsoncpp-devel