diff --git a/src/Microsoft.DotNet.Build.Tasks/PackageFiles/RunnerTemplate.Unix.txt b/src/Microsoft.DotNet.Build.Tasks/PackageFiles/RunnerTemplate.Unix.txt
index b11028b3b7..ff2f4f0529 100644
--- a/src/Microsoft.DotNet.Build.Tasks/PackageFiles/RunnerTemplate.Unix.txt
+++ b/src/Microsoft.DotNet.Build.Tasks/PackageFiles/RunnerTemplate.Unix.txt
@@ -50,7 +50,9 @@ if [ "$(uname -s)" == "Darwin" ]; then
   # On OS X, we will enable core dump generation only if there are no core 
   # files already in /cores/ at this point. This is being done to prevent
   # inadvertently flooding the CI machines with dumps.
-  if [ ! "$(ls -A /cores)" ]; then 
+  if [ ! -d "/cores" ]; then
+    ulimit -c unlimited
+  elif [ ! "$(ls -A /cores)" ]; then
     ulimit -c unlimited
   fi
 elif [ "$(uname -s)" == "Linux" ]; then