[autotools] possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_ERROR

I have the following in configure.ac:

AC_CHECK_PROGS(MAKE,$MAKE make gmake,error)
if test "x$MAKE" = "xerror" ;then
  AC_MSG_ERROR([cannot find a make command])
fi

This has been in our project for a long time, but in some set ups, I get this error:

configure.ac:45: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_ERROR
  If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
  See the Autoconf documentation.

The lines that were recently added above this:

AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])
LT_INIT

Can anyone explain what causes this error and how to track down the problem?

EDIT: Adding details about the differences.

Box that works:

uname -a Linux host1 2.6.38-13-generic #53-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 28 19:33:45 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

automake: 1.11.1
autoconf: 2.67
m4: 1.4.14
libtoolize: 2.2.6b

Box that doesn't work:

Linux host2 2.6.32-35-generic-pae #78-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 11 17:01:12 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux

automake: 1.11.1
autoconf: 2.65
m4: 1.4.13
libtoolize: 2.2.6b

NEW EDIT: only 32 bit machines experience this difficulty.

UPDATED I am able to reproduce the problem on a CentOS machine with autoconf 2.67, automake 1.11.1, libtool 2.2.6b, and m4 1.4.14. Is this just a bug with 32-bit machines?

Are you setting up a local 'm4' directory? e.g.,

> aclocal -I m4 --install

Some packages come with an autogen.sh or initgen.sh shell script to run glibtoolize, autoheader, autoconf, automake. Here's an autogen.sh script I use:

#! /bin/sh

case `uname` in Darwin*) glibtoolize --copy ;;
  *) libtoolize --copy ;; esac

autoheader
aclocal -I m4 --install
autoconf

automake --foreign --add-missing --force-missing --copy

EDIT

You may need to add ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4 to the top-level Makefile.am.

The error is generated by autom4te. If things are set up correctly, the portion of the code that generates that error should never see 'AC_MSG_ERROR', because it should have been expanded by m4 before that point. You say the error only happens "in some setups". I would suggest that in those setups, your autoconf installation is fubar. Possibly you have an incompatible version of m4 installed.

On Mac OS X el captain with brew, try:
brew install pkgconfig

This worked for me.

I had similar issues when trying to build amtk and utthpmock with jhbuild.

I needed to install the most recent version of autoconf-archive. Instructions are at https://github.com/autoconf-archive/autoconf-archive/blob/master/README-maint. I did an additional sudo make install at the end.

The last step was to update my ACLOCAL_PATH:

echo 'export ACLOCAL_PATH=$ACLOCAL_PATH:/usr/local/share/aclocal' >> ~/.bashrc

After a source ~/.bashrc, all the macros were finally found and the builds succeeded.

This happened to me when I forgot a , in the arguments for a locally defined macro. Spent hours trying to figure it out (barely acquainted with autotools)...

AC_CHECK_MACRO([Foo]
    AC_LOCAL_DO([......

should have been

AC_CHECK_MACRO([Foo],      # <-- Notice comma, doh!
    AC_LOCAL_DO([......

Seems like it should have given me an error or such, but I suppose being a macro processor it can only do what its told.

Using MacOS X

sudo port install pkgconfig

was the solution!

For Debian. Required packages are: m4 automake pkg-config libtool

I just lost a few hours on this one. My conclusion:

• Depending on version and whatever other local conditions, autoconf will spit out the message about AC_MSG_ERROR undefined when it encounters ANY undefined macro. The AC_MSG_ERROR is a red herring. The causes for an undefined macro can be:
  • A typo in a macro name in the file, or a local macro which has not been shipped with the tarball
  • Missing a package which would have come with a set of autoconf macros, one of which is used in the file. pkg-config is often the missing one (because of, e.g.,PKG_CHECK_MODULES), but this could be any other package supplying a needed but absent macro. The vicious thing of course, is that this happens before the still not existing configure script could check for the missing package...

i also had similar problem.. my solution is to

apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev

(i had libcurl allready installed ) worked for me at least..

My issue is resolved after I install pkg-config on Mac (brew install pkg-config)

I solved this by yum install libtool

There are two possible reasons for that problem:

1. did not install aclocal.
   solution:install libtool

   • For ubuntu: sudo apt-get install libtool
   • For centos: sudo yum install libtool

2. the path to LIBTOOL.m4 is error.
   solution:

   1. use aclocal --print-ac-dir to check current path to aclocal.(It's usually should be "/usr/share/aclocal" or "/usr/share/aclocal")
   2. Then check if there are *.m4 files.
   3. If not, cp corresponding *.m4 files to this path.( Maybe cp /usr/share/aclocal/*.m4 /usr/local/share/aclocal/ or cp /usr/local/share/aclocal/*.m4 /usr/share/aclocal/)

Hope it helps

I had this problem with my own configure.ac, but in this case (and for the benefit of anyone here from Google) it was because I had accidentally quoted the AC_MSG_ERROR so it was being treated as a string:

AX_BOOST_BASE([1.42], [], [AC_MSG_ERROR([Could not find Boost])])

Once I removed the square brackets around the AC_MSG_ERROR macro, it worked:

AX_BOOST_BASE([1.42], [], AC_MSG_ERROR([Could not find Boost]))

Those comments saying you should install pkg-config or some package are missing the point. The AC_MSG_ERROR is supposed to work and give you a helpful message like "You need to install package XYZ", but because of some problem, the AC_MSG_ERROR doesn't work. Installing package XYZ will certainly make the error go away, but only because once the package is there, there is no longer any need to print an error message!

So installing pkg-config or a particular package just bypasses the problem, it doesn't actually fix it.

It is recommended to use autoreconf -fi instead of manually calling aclocal;autoconf;automake; #and whatever else to properly populate aclocal.m4 and so on.

Adding ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4 (to the toplevel Makefile.am) and AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4]) is currently still optional if you do not use any own m4 files, but of course, doing it will silence the proocess :)

I had the same problem on Ubuntu (error: possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_ERROR) but the answers above didn't work for me. I found the solution here

That did the trick:

$ LANG=C LC_CTYPE=C ./autogen.sh

I have experienced this same problem under CentOS 7

In may case, the problem went off after installation of libcurl-devel (libcurl was already installed on this machine)

I had the same problem on RHEL7.5 with otto-de/libvmod-uuid

It was fixed by installing "autoconf-archive" packages

I had the same problem with the Macports port "openocd" (locally modified the Portfile to use the git repository) on a freshly installed machine.

The permanent fix is easy, define a dependency to pkgconfig in the Portfile: depends_lib-append port:pkgconfig