diff --git a/fairseq/data/handwriting/scribblelens.py b/fairseq/data/handwriting/scribblelens.py
index 7070b6d225..370ce43eb0 100644
--- a/fairseq/data/handwriting/scribblelens.py
+++ b/fairseq/data/handwriting/scribblelens.py
@@ -294,6 +294,7 @@ def __init__(self,
         self.root = root
 
         self.file = zipfile.ZipFile(root)
+        self.pid = os.getpid()
         root = 'scribblelens.corpus.v1'
 
         self.target_width = target_width
@@ -657,8 +658,13 @@ def __len__(self):
         return len(self.data)
 
     def __getitem__(self, idx):
-        if not self.file:  # Reopen to work with multiprocessing
+        # Reopen the ZipFile to work with multiprocessing
+        if self.pid != os.getpid() and self.file:
+            self.file.close()
+            self.file = None
+        if not self.file:
             self.file = zipfile.ZipFile(self.root)
+            self.pid = os.getpid()
         item = self.data[idx]
 
         df_item = self.data_frame.iloc[idx]
diff --git a/uwr_related/configs/scribblelens_base.yaml b/uwr_related/configs/scribblelens_base.yaml
index 3c860c3025..eba8835691 100644
--- a/uwr_related/configs/scribblelens_base.yaml
+++ b/uwr_related/configs/scribblelens_base.yaml
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ task:
   labels: True
 
 dataset:
-  num_workers: 0
+  num_workers: 2
   max_tokens: 10000
   skip_invalid_size_inputs_valid_test: true
   valid_subset: test