Computer program product and system to limit core file generation in a massively parallel computing system comprising a plurality of compute nodes each executing at least one task, of a plurality of tasks, by: upon determining that a first task executing on a first compute node has failed, performing an atomic load and increment operation on a core file count; generating a first core file upon determining that the core file count is below a predefined threshold; and not generating the first core file upon determining that the core file count is not below the predefined threshold.