diff --git a/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/totem/default.nix b/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/totem/default.nix
index b66405cf0510..d16a57dbc42d 100644
--- a/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/totem/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/totem/default.nix
@@ -9,7 +9,9 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   doCheck = true;
 
-  enableParallelBuilding = true;
+  # https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=784236
+  # https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/1994
+  enableParallelBuilding = false;
 
   NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE = "-I${gnome3.glib.dev}/include/gio-unix-2.0";