configure: error: cannot find macro directory `m4'

[Jeff Sheinberg]

Hi,

I had stopped work on a project which uses autoconf and automake
about 6 months ago.  At that time "make distcheck" was working
without any problems.  Unfortunately, I do not know which versions
of autoconf and automake I had been using 6 months ago.

I restarted work on the project yesterday, using these versions,

    $ autoconf --version
    autoconf (GNU Autoconf) 2.59

    $ automake --version
    automake (GNU automake) 1.9.1

and now "make distcheck" no longer works.  I tried "make dist",
which generates a tarball, however, unpacking that tarball into an
empty directory and then running the "./configure" script fails
with the same (subject) error message as "make distcheck".

Of course, I ran "autoreconf" before "make distcheck", and when
that failed, I ran "make maintainer-clean; autoreconf", to no
avail.

Here is a typescript of the tail of the output,

    ...
    chmod -R a-w realpath-0.1.0; chmod a+w realpath-0.1.0
    mkdir realpath-0.1.0/_build
    mkdir realpath-0.1.0/_inst
    chmod a-w realpath-0.1.0
    dc_install_base=`CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd realpath-0.1.0/_inst && 
pwd | sed -e 's,^[^:\\/]:[\\/],/,'` \
      && dc_destdir="${TMPDIR-/tmp}/am-dc-$$/" \
      && cd realpath-0.1.0/_build \
      && ../configure --srcdir=.. --prefix="$dc_install_base" \
         \
      && make  \
      && make  dvi \
      && make  check \
      && make  install \
      && make  installcheck \
      && make  uninstall \
      && make  distuninstallcheck_dir="$dc_install_base" \
            distuninstallcheck \
      && chmod -R a-w "$dc_install_base" \
      && ({ \
           (cd ../.. && umask 077 && mkdir "$dc_destdir") \
           && make  DESTDIR="$dc_destdir" install \
           && make  DESTDIR="$dc_destdir" uninstall \
           && make  DESTDIR="$dc_destdir" \
                distuninstallcheck_dir="$dc_destdir" distuninstallcheck; \
          } || { rm -rf "$dc_destdir"; exit 1; }) \
      && rm -rf "$dc_destdir" \
      && make  dist \
      && rm -rf realpath-0.1.0.tar.gz \
      && make  distcleancheck
    configure: error: cannot find macro directory `m4'
    make: *** [distcheck] Error 1
    --> exit status 2

and here is the section of the "./configure" script that generated
the subject error message,

    ...
              ac_config_headers="$ac_config_headers config.h"


    case m4 in
      [\\/]* | ?:[\\/]* ) ac_macro_dir=m4         ;;
      *)                      ac_macro_dir=$srcdir/m4 ;;
    esac
    if test -d "$ac_macro_dir"; then :
    else
      { { echo "$as_me:$LINENO: error: cannot find macro directory \`m4'" >&5
    echo "$as_me: error: cannot find macro directory \`m4'" >&2;}
       { (exit 1); exit 1; }; }
    fi
    ...

Any suggestions as to how to proceed would be gratefully
appreciated.

Thanks,
-- 
Jeff Sheinberg