diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 940c5a74a065cd14b2e78b46cef0e4f0b208bb6e..d9c1c50d649277d1e7bb55cb4f6078b77e0d121f 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -94,8 +94,9 @@ jobs:
   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
+# these should be fixed:
+  - name: MacOS, MPI build
+  - name: MacOS, serial build
 ## Possible additional variables:
 #   VALGRIND=yes to make valgrind tests, only when log contains string [valgrind]
 install: