diff --git a/tests/qemu-iotests/223 b/tests/qemu-iotests/223
index cc48e78ea7..2ba3d8124b 100755
--- a/tests/qemu-iotests/223
+++ b/tests/qemu-iotests/223
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 #
 # Test reading dirty bitmap over NBD
 #
-# Copyright (C) 2018 Red Hat, Inc.
+# Copyright (C) 2018-2019 Red Hat, Inc.
 #
 # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ echo
 echo "=== End dirty bitmaps, and start serving image over NBD ==="
 echo
 
-_launch_qemu 2> >(_filter_nbd)
+_launch_qemu -object iothread,id=io0 2> >(_filter_nbd)
 
 # Intentionally provoke some errors as well, to check error handling
 silent=
@@ -117,6 +117,8 @@ _send_qemu_cmd $QEMU_HANDLE '{"execute":"qmp_capabilities"}' "return"
 _send_qemu_cmd $QEMU_HANDLE '{"execute":"blockdev-add",
   "arguments":{"driver":"qcow2", "node-name":"n",
     "file":{"driver":"file", "filename":"'"$TEST_IMG"'"}}}' "return"
+_send_qemu_cmd $QEMU_HANDLE '{"execute":"x-blockdev-set-iothread",
+  "arguments":{"node-name":"n", "iothread":"io0"}}' "return"
 _send_qemu_cmd $QEMU_HANDLE '{"execute":"block-dirty-bitmap-disable",
   "arguments":{"node":"n", "name":"b"}}' "return"
 _send_qemu_cmd $QEMU_HANDLE '{"execute":"nbd-server-add",
diff --git a/tests/qemu-iotests/223.out b/tests/qemu-iotests/223.out
index 5d00398c11..23b34fcd20 100644
--- a/tests/qemu-iotests/223.out
+++ b/tests/qemu-iotests/223.out
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ wrote 2097152/2097152 bytes at offset 2097152
 {"return": {}}
 {"return": {}}
 {"return": {}}
+{"return": {}}
 {"error": {"class": "GenericError", "desc": "NBD server not running"}}
 {"return": {}}
 {"error": {"class": "GenericError", "desc": "NBD server already running"}}