Makeinfo versions < 6.7 detected mistakes in the @menu structure of TeXinfo input. Makeinfo versions ≥ 6.8 don't do this any more by default. They need an extra option, for this validation to happen. See . Since doc/diffutils.texi has a hand-written @menu, it should use this extra option. Here's a patch to that effect. There are two possibilities for adding the extra option: - in the MAKEINFO variable, where it has an effect on both "makeinfo" and "makeinfo --html", - in the AM_MAKEINFOFLAGS variable, where it has an effect on "makeinfo" only. Since some maintainers may check their documentation edits only by regenerating the HTML-formatted documentation, the first choice is preferrable. Tested by running touch doc/diffutils.texi ; (cd doc && make diffutils.info V=1) and make sc_makefile_at_at_check