diff --git a/test/system/helpers.bash b/test/system/helpers.bash
index b0d4b526a9..4bc1ba78c1 100644
--- a/test/system/helpers.bash
+++ b/test/system/helpers.bash
@@ -177,6 +177,15 @@ function run_podman() {
     # without "quotes", multiple lines are glommed together into one
     if [ -n "$output" ]; then
         echo "$output"
+
+        # FIXME FIXME FIXME: instrumenting to track down #15488. Please
+        # remove once that's fixed. We include the args because, remember,
+        # bats only shows output on error; it's possible that the first
+        # instance of the metacopy warning happens in a test that doesn't
+        # check output, hence doesn't fail.
+        if [[ "$output" =~ Ignoring.global.metacopy.option ]]; then
+            echo "# YO! metacopy warning triggered by: podman $*" >&3
+        fi
     fi
     if [ "$status" -ne 0 ]; then
         echo -n "[ rc=$status ";