diff --git a/ports/unix/Makefile b/ports/unix/Makefile
index 36b6322d86c29..bf9d290abfa9a 100644
--- a/ports/unix/Makefile
+++ b/ports/unix/Makefile
@@ -290,6 +290,17 @@ else
 RUN_TESTS_MPY_CROSS_FLAGS = --mpy-cross-flags='-mcache-lookup-bc'
 endif
 
+ifeq ($(CROSS_COMPILE),arm-linux-gnueabi-)
+# Force disable error text compression when compiling for ARM as the compiler
+# cannot optimise out the giant strcmp list generated for MP_MATCH_COMPRESSED.
+# Checked on:
+# arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc (Ubuntu/Linaro 7.5.0-3ubuntu1~18.04) 7.5.0
+# arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc (Ubuntu 9.3.0-17ubuntu1~20.04) 9.3.0
+# See https://github.com/micropython/micropython/pull/7659 for details.
+$(info Detected arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc. Disabling error message compression.)
+MICROPY_ROM_TEXT_COMPRESSION = 0
+endif
+
 include $(TOP)/py/mkrules.mk
 
 .PHONY: test test_full
diff --git a/tests/extmod/vfs_fat_finaliser.py b/tests/extmod/vfs_fat_finaliser.py
index e30f42f8471f5..b67afc2d94641 100644
--- a/tests/extmod/vfs_fat_finaliser.py
+++ b/tests/extmod/vfs_fat_finaliser.py
@@ -56,6 +56,13 @@ def ioctl(self, op, arg):
 # Here we test that the finaliser is actually called during a garbage collection.
 import gc
 
+# Do a large number of single-block allocations to move the GC head forwards,
+# ensuring that the files are allocated from never-before-used blocks and
+# therefore couldn't possibly have any references to them left behind on
+# the stack.
+for i in range(1024):
+    []
+
 N = 4
 for i in range(N):
     n = "x%d" % i