diff --git a/conformance/conformance_test_runner.cc b/conformance/conformance_test_runner.cc
index 780e1c44..c3b3db22 100644
--- a/conformance/conformance_test_runner.cc
+++ b/conformance/conformance_test_runner.cc
@@ -202,6 +202,12 @@ void UsageError() {
 
 void ParseFailureList(const char *filename, vector<string>* failure_list) {
   std::ifstream infile(filename);
+
+  if (!infile.is_open()) {
+    fprintf(stderr, "Couldn't open failure list file: %s\n", filename);
+    exit(1);
+  }
+
   for (string line; getline(infile, line);) {
     // Remove whitespace.
     line.erase(std::remove_if(line.begin(), line.end(), ::isspace),
diff --git a/conformance/failure_list_python.txt b/conformance/failure_list_python.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e69de29b
diff --git a/conformance/failure_list_python_cpp.txt b/conformance/failure_list_python_cpp.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4b16a88b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/conformance/failure_list_python_cpp.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+# This is the list of conformance tests that are known to fail for the
+# Python/C++ implementation right now.  These should be fixed.
+#
+# By listing them here we can keep tabs on which ones are failing and be sure
+# that we don't introduce regressions in other tests.
+#
+# TODO(haberman): insert links to corresponding bugs tracking the issue.
+# Should we use GitHub issues or the Google-internal bug tracker?
+
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInDelimitedDataForKnownNonRepeatedValue.MESSAGE
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInDelimitedDataForKnownRepeatedValue.MESSAGE
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.BOOL
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.DOUBLE
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.ENUM
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.FIXED32
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.FIXED64
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.FLOAT
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.INT32
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.INT64
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.SFIXED32
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.SFIXED64
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.SINT32
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.SINT64
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.UINT32
+ProtobufInput.PrematureEofInPackedField.UINT64
diff --git a/python/setup.py b/python/setup.py
index 05c16fc3..18865e03 100755
--- a/python/setup.py
+++ b/python/setup.py
@@ -147,7 +147,8 @@ class build_py(_build_py):
 class test_conformance(_build_py):
   target = 'test_python'
   def run(self):
-    os.system('cd ../conformance && make %s' % (test_conformance.target))
+    cmd = 'cd ../conformance && make %s' % (test_conformance.target)
+    status = subprocess.check_call(cmd, shell=True)
 
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':