diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 3ef51b9962..a129fa81b2 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 
 - Improved container image resolution and prioritization of http downloads over Docker URIs ([#2364](https://github.com/nf-core/tools/pull/2364)).
 - Registries provided with `-l`/`--container-library` will be ignored for modules with explicit container registry specifications ([#2403](https://github.com/nf-core/tools/pull/2403)).
+- Fix unintentional downloading of containers in test for the Tower download functionality. Bug reported by @adamrtalbot and @awgymer ([#2434](https://github.com/nf-core/tools/pull/2434)).
 
 ### Linting
 
diff --git a/tests/test_download.py b/tests/test_download.py
index dfd78adcfb..ee0744f660 100644
--- a/tests/test_download.py
+++ b/tests/test_download.py
@@ -402,7 +402,8 @@ def test_download_workflow_with_success(self, tmp_dir, mock_download_image, mock
     # Test Download for Tower
     #
     @with_temporary_folder
-    def test_download_workflow_for_tower(self, tmp_dir):
+    @mock.patch("nf_core.download.DownloadWorkflow.get_singularity_images")
+    def test_download_workflow_for_tower(self, tmp_dir, _):
         download_obj = DownloadWorkflow(
             pipeline="nf-core/rnaseq",
             revision=("3.7", "3.9"),
@@ -451,11 +452,6 @@ def test_download_workflow_for_tower(self, tmp_dir):
 
         # download_obj.download_workflow_tower(location=tmp_dir) will run container image detection for all requested revisions
         assert isinstance(download_obj.containers, list) and len(download_obj.containers) == 33
-        # manually test container image detection for 3.7 revision only
-        download_obj.containers = []  # empty container list for the test
-        download_obj.workflow_repo.checkout(download_obj.wf_sha["3.7"])
-        download_obj.find_container_images(download_obj.workflow_repo.access())
-        assert len(download_obj.containers) == 30  # 30 containers for 3.7
         assert (
             "https://depot.galaxyproject.org/singularity/bbmap:38.93--he522d1c_0" in download_obj.containers
         )  # direct definition