diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 7b886c4742a940c71210d39d73066464d25dae64..0155148df3c5b095d11492a73e489cf956e357e4 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -95,6 +95,8 @@ matrix:
   allow_failures:
 # I allow this to fail temporarily
   - env: PLUMED_DOCKER=yes
+# this is failing due to problems in installing MPI, should be allowed to fail until we fix it.
+  - env: PLUMED_CC=mpicc PLUMED_CXX=mpic++  PLUMED_CXXFLAGS=-O3
 ## Possible additional variables:
 #   VALGRIND=yes to make valgrind tests, only when log contains string [valgrind]
 install: