#132 Error running ./bootstrap

[Joseph Gelfand]

Hello,

  Sorry to bother you, but I'm having issues installing dspsr on an Ubuntu machine:
  jg168@b22-l-jg168-phy:/opt/prog/dspsr$ uname -a

Linux b22-l-jg168-phy 6.8.0-101-generic #101-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Feb 9 10:15:05 UTC 2026 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

When I run ./bootstrap, I receive the following error message right before it exits:
Kernel/Classes/Makefile.am:58: error: HAVE_MPI does not appear in AM_CONDITIONAL
autoreconf: error: automake failed with exit status: 1
./bootstrap: 45: exit: Illegal number: -1
and was wondering what the issue might be. Attached is the backends.list I'm trying to use, as well as the text output from ./bootstrap >> bootstrap.log.

Thanks a lot for all of you help, and hope all is well

[Willem van Straten]

Hi Joseph,

I checked on my end, and HAVE_MPI no longer appears in Kernel/Classes/Makefile.am.

What version of DSPSR are you trying to compile? When I run git log in the top-level of the source code directory, I get

commit b8de2313aefd9252ae15fec66c19ec0ea384399b (HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Author: Willem van Straten <vanstraten.willem@gmail.com>
Date:   Fri Feb 13 09:53:47 2026 +1300

Cheers,
Willem

[Joseph Gelfand]

Thanks a lot for this, and sorry for the delayed reply. Attached is what I get when I run "git log" -- which seems to be much longer than what you pasted above... Hope all is well and stays that way.

[Joseph Gelfand]

Sorry for another post, but I decided to do a fresh install of dspsr, and ./bootstrap ran just fine, but ./configure gave the following error message:
configure: error: Package requirements (psrchive >= 2026-02-26 ) were not met:

   Package 'psrchive', required by 'virtual:world', not found

   Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
   installed software in a non-standard prefix.

    Alternatively, you may set the environment variables PSRCHIVE_CFLAGS
    and PSRCHIVE_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config.
    See the pkg-config man page for more details.

I have installed psrchive into a folder /opt/prog/pulsar, which contains:
jg168@b22-l-jg168-phy:/opt/prog/dspsr$ ls /opt/prog/pulsar/ bin include lib share src tempo2
I'm assuming PSRCHIVE_LIBS should be set to the lib subdirectory, but how about PSRCHIVE_CFLAGS? Very sorry to trouble you, and hope all is well.

[Willem van Straten]

Thanks for uploading the git log output. It shows that the software was almost 8 years old, and I agree that updating dspsr is a wise thing to do, owing to changes in the libraries on which it depends (primarily PSRCHIVE).

This leads to the next error. Since 2018, both DSPSR and PSRCHIVE have been updated to manage more third-party package dependencies using pkg-config. This includes the dependency between DSPSR and PSRCHIVE.

You can test the version of pkg-config installed on your system with

$ pkg-config --version
0.29.1

(I've included the output that I get on my laptop). You can see what version of PSRCHIVE it finds with

$ pkg-config --modversion psrchive
2026-02-26

If instead you get

$ pkg-config --modversion psrchive
Package psrchive was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `psrchive.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'psrchive' found

Then you'll need to update the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable.

Based on what you wrote, the required psrchive.pc file should be in /opt/prog/pulsar/lib/pkconfig so (in bash) you could

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="${PKG_CONFIG_PATH:+${PKG_CONFIG_PATH}:}/opt/prog/pulsar/lib/pkconfig"

Hope this helps!

[Joseph Gelfand]

Thanks a lot, this was very helpful. However, I'm now running into a new (psrchive) related issue
`checking pkg-config is at least version 0.9.0... yes
checking for psrchive >= 2026-02-26 ... no
configure: error: Package requirements (psrchive >= 2026-02-26 ) were not met:

Package dependency requirement 'psrchive >= 2026-02-26' could not be satisfied.
Package 'psrchive' has version '2025-10-31', required version is '>= 2026-02-26'I'm a little puzzled, since installed psrchive on this machine this past Thursday, and when I usegit fetch git://git.code.sf.net/p/psrchive/code` to update this repository it doesn't fetch anything. Any more suggestions?

Really sorry for all of the questions, and thank you very much for all of your help.

[Willem van Straten]

Hi Joseph, Could you please test the following theories?

Theory A: git fetch updates your copy of the remote repository, but it doesn't actually merge the remote copy into your local copy. You could test this by running git pull in the top-level folder of the psrchive source code; if this returns 'Already up to date.' then this theory is debunked. If it shows merging activity, then this could be the issue.

Theory B: There might be two installations of psrchive on your system, and pkg-config is picking up the older installation. To test this, you could try the following:

1. In the directory where you build psrchive, you can type 'make where' to see where psrchive will be installed.
2. Run pkg-config --debug psrchive |& grep 'from file' and see if the path to 'psrchive.pc' matches the intended installation path.

If these are the same, then theory B is debunked. If the paths are different, then you might need to remove the old installation directory from PKG_CONFIG_PATH.

With fingers crossed!
Willem

[Joseph Gelfand]

Thanks. When I did git pull I got the following:
jg168@b22-l-jg168-phy:/opt/prog/dspsr$ git pull Already up to date.
So that rules out Theory A (unfortunately, I think that would have been an easier fix)

For Theory B:, make where returns PSRCHIVE 2026-02-26 will be installed in /opt/prog/pulsar/ but, when I run pkg-config -- debug I get the following (adding the "|" and text afterwards returned nothing, which is why I'm attaching the longer output here.

Again, sorry for all the trouble, and thanks a lot for all of your help.

[Willem van Straten]

Hi Joseph, for "Theory A" could you please run git pull in the top-level folder of the psrchive source code? (It looks like you ran this command in /opt/prog/dspsr)

Also, for Theory B, you forgot to paste the output of pkg-config --debug psrchive

:-)

[Joseph Gelfand]

Sorry: for git pull this is the output:
jg168@b22-l-jg168-phy:/opt/prog/psrchive$ git pull Already up to date.
And the output is hopefully attached below.

[Willem van Straten]

Hi Joseph, your pkg-config question prompted me to write some long-overdue documentation of this feature:

https://psrchive.sourceforge.net/pkg-config/

If you have some time after we get to the root of the problem, I'd appreciate your feedback on this documentation.

[Joseph Gelfand]

Happy to look at it then, and -- again -- thank you for your patience and all of your help.

[Willem van Straten]

Thanks for attaching the debug output from pkg-config. It confirms that the configuration file is found in what appears to be the expected location

found: /opt/prog/pulsar/lib/pkgconfig/psrchive.pc

and that the version in this file is as reported

added dependency [psrchive = 2025-10-31] to list

With apologies for what must feel like running in circles, could you please try the following?

1. In the PSRCHIVE source code directory (/opt/prog/psrchive), run

grep AC_INIT configure.ac 

It should return

AC_INIT([PSRCHIVE],[2026-02-26],[psrchive-developers@lists.sourceforge.net])

If not, then something strange is happening with git pull that will require further investigation.

1. In the PSRCHIVE build directory (often the same as the source code directory), run

make where

It should return /opt/prog/pulsar. If not, then you may need to rerun the configure script with the prefix argument. e.g.

/opt/prog/psrchive/configure --prefix=/opt/prog/pulsar

1. If both steps 1 and 2 seem ok, please trying running (in the PSRCHIVE build directory)

make install

and, after it completes, check that 2026-02-26 is correctly installed with

pkg-config --modversion psrchive

If not, could you please pipe the output of make install to a text file and attach the file?

Thanks!

[Joseph Gelfand]

No need to apologize at all, and thanks a lot for not giving up on me. Here are the results of the above suggestions:
Step 1:
jg168@b22-l-jg168-phy:/opt/prog/psrchive$ grep AC_INIT configure.ac AC_INIT([PSRCHIVE],[2026-02-26],[psrchive-developers@lists.sourceforge.net])
So I think that passes

Step 2:
`jg168@b22-l-jg168-phy:/opt/prog/psrchive$ make where

PSRCHIVE 2026-02-26 will be installed in /opt/prog/pulsar/`
So I think that passes as well.

So moving onto the make install step:
jg168@b22-l-jg168-phy:/opt/prog/psrchive$ pkg-config --modversion psrchive 2026-02-26
which is good (I think).

So I went into /opt/prog/dspsr and tried to build / install it again:
./bootstrap seemed to work well enough it told me to run configure
./configure seemed to work well enough it told me to run make
make ran well enough to tell me to run make install
make install ended with:
`DSPSR 2026-02-26 has been installed in /opt/prog/pulsar/

         If you make use of DSPSR, please cite
              van Straten & Bailes (2011)
       http://www.publish.csiro.au/?paper=AS10021

make[1]: Leaving directory '/opt/prog/dspsr'`

So I guess it might be working? Again, thanks so much for all of your help

[Willem van Straten]

Excellent! Sounds like things are working. Thanks for the confirmation.