diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 1817c50b833e1b7531a66ac5e6510254866275b1..388892a3c807c0ec9108c0c669b20d374e52c30d 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -89,6 +89,8 @@ 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: