CircleCI builds on Linux spuriously fail

See, for instance, build #256. This build seemed to be chugging along quite nicely when at minute 30 it failed with,

"inplace/bin/ghc-stage1" -hisuf p_hi -osuf  p_o -hcsuf p_hc -static -prof -eventlog  -H32m -O -Wall   -Iincludes -Iincludes/dist -Iincludes/dist-derivedconstants/header -Iincludes/dist-ghcconstants/header   -this-unit-id ghc-8.3 -hide-all-packages -i -icompiler/backpack -icompiler/basicTypes -icompiler/cmm -icompiler/codeGen -icompiler/coreSyn -icompiler/deSugar -icompiler/ghci -icompiler/hsSyn -icompiler/iface -icompiler/llvmGen -icompiler/main -icompiler/nativeGen -icompiler/parser -icompiler/prelude -icompiler/profiling -icompiler/rename -icompiler/simplCore -icompiler/simplStg -icompiler/specialise -icompiler/stgSyn -icompiler/stranal -icompiler/typecheck -icompiler/types -icompiler/utils -icompiler/vectorise -icompiler/stage2/build -Icompiler/stage2/build -icompiler/stage2/build/./autogen -Icompiler/stage2/build/./autogen -Icompiler/. -Icompiler/parser -Icompiler/utils -Icompiler/../rts/dist/build -Icompiler/stage2   -optP-DGHCI -optP-include -optPcompiler/stage2/build/./autogen/cabal_macros.h -package-id base-4.11.0.0 -package-id deepseq-1.4.3.0 -package-id directory-1.3.1.5 -package-id process-1.6.1.0 -package-id bytestring-0.10.8.2 -package-id binary-0.8.5.1 -package-id time-1.8.0.2 -package-id containers-0.5.10.2 -package-id array-0.5.2.0 -package-id filepath-1.4.1.2 -package-id template-haskell-2.13.0.0 -package-id hpc-0.6.0.3 -package-id transformers-0.5.4.0 -package-id ghc-boot-8.3 -package-id ghc-boot-th-8.3 -package-id ghci-8.3 -package-id unix-2.7.2.2 -package-id terminfo-0.4.1.0 -Wall -Wno-name-shadowing -Wnoncanonical-monad-instances -Wnoncanonical-monadfail-instances -Wnoncanonical-monoid-instances -this-unit-id ghc -XHaskell2010 -XNoImplicitPrelude -optc-DTHREADED_RTS -DGHCI_TABLES_NEXT_TO_CODE -DSTAGE=2 -Rghc-timing -O2 -Wcpp-undef  -no-user-package-db -rtsopts       -Wnoncanonical-monad-instances  -odir compiler/stage2/build -hidir compiler/stage2/build -stubdir compiler/stage2/build    -c compiler/hsSyn/HsDecls.hs -o compiler/stage2/build/HsDecls.p_o -dyno compiler/stage2/build/HsDecls.dyn_o
...
compiler/ghc.mk:447: recipe for target 'compiler/stage2/build/HsDecls.p_o' failed
make[1]: *** [compiler/stage2/build/HsDecls.p_o] Killed

Why was it killed? No one knows. I suspect it ran out of memory since it appears that there was at least seven other GHC processes running concurrently on a machine with only 4 gigabytes of memory. However, seeing as there's no way to tell whether the OOM killer was invoked it's hard to know for certain.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Version	8.2.1
Type	Bug
TypeOfFailure	OtherFailure
Priority	high
Resolution	Unresolved
Component	Continuous Integration
Test case
Differential revisions
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Blocking
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