Build of 7.8.866 getting stuck in a loop

[Magnus Holmgren, Millnet/Lysator/Debian/Mensa @ Pike developers forum]

Nobody has any idea why the 7.8 build hangs but not the 8.0 build? Is
it time to abandon pike7.8 already? Actually I'm not sure if there's
any good reason to keep multiple versions in parallel in the same
manner as Python; it was just packaged that way when I took over.