diff --git a/opal/mca/pmix/cray/Makefile.am b/opal/mca/pmix/cray/Makefile.am
index 87e60615bc..953f6e0269 100644
--- a/opal/mca/pmix/cray/Makefile.am
+++ b/opal/mca/pmix/cray/Makefile.am
@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@
 # $HEADER$
 #
 
+dist_opaldata_DATA = help-pmix-cray.txt
+
 sources = \
         pmix_cray.h \
         pmix_cray_component.c \
diff --git a/opal/mca/pmix/cray/help-pmix-cray.txt b/opal/mca/pmix/cray/help-pmix-cray.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c433635b09
--- /dev/null
+++ b/opal/mca/pmix/cray/help-pmix-cray.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+ -*- text -*-
+#
+# Copyright (c) 2010      Cisco Systems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
+# Copyright (c) 2016      Los Alamos National Security, LLC. All rights
+#                         reserved.
+#
+# $COPYRIGHT$
+#
+# Additional copyrights may follow
+#
+# $HEADER$
+#
+# This is the US/English general help file for OPAL PMIX Cray module.
+#
+[aprun-not-supported]
+Direct launch with aprun only works when either the PMI_NO_FORK environment
+variable is set, or Open MPI is built with dlopen support disabled.
diff --git a/opal/mca/pmix/cray/pmix_cray_component.c b/opal/mca/pmix/cray/pmix_cray_component.c
index 1858ddb32b..3d58a40d0f 100644
--- a/opal/mca/pmix/cray/pmix_cray_component.c
+++ b/opal/mca/pmix/cray/pmix_cray_component.c
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
 
 #include "opal/constants.h"
 #include "opal/mca/pmix/pmix.h"
+#include "opal/util/show_help.h"
 #include "pmix_cray.h"
 #include <sys/syscall.h>
 #include <pmi.h>
@@ -79,6 +80,28 @@ opal_pmix_cray_component_t mca_pmix_cray_component = {
 
 static int pmix_cray_component_open(void)
 {
+    /*
+     * Turns out that there's a lot of reliance on libevent
+     * and the default behavior of Cray PMI to fork
+     * in a constructor breaks libevent.
+     *
+     * Open MPI will not launch correctly on Cray XE/XC systems
+     * under these conditions:
+     *
+     * 1) direct launch using aprun, and
+     * 2) PMI_NO_FORK env. variable is not set, nor was
+     * 3) --disable-dlopen used as part of configury
+     *
+     * Under SLURM, PMI_NO_FORK is always set, so we can combine
+     * the check for conditions 1) and 2) together
+     */
+
+#if OPAL_ENABLE_DLOPEN_SUPPORT
+    if (NULL == getenv("PMI_NO_FORK")) {
+        opal_show_help("help-pmix-cray.txt", "aprun-not-supported", true);
+        exit(-1);
+    }
+#endif
     return OPAL_SUCCESS;
 }