multimedia/libva fails in configure stage, missing file?

[Thomas Mueller]

from Guido Falsi:

> Mine was just an idea. The cause could be something else. I don't know
> much about the automake internals. It simply dies with return code one.
> You should try to diagnose that.

I don't know how to diagnose automake's failing, except to try on another FreeBSD, NetBSD or Linux system.  

I see some ports that previously didn't list automake or autoconf as dependency now do, such as mutt.

It also looks like, if I have a useful system, I really should back it up, the whole OS + packages/ports, to another partition.

That would protect not only against a massive portupgrade/portmaster removing and failing to rebuild a port but also against messing the base system with an update that turns out to be buggy.

Tom