Subject: "error: too many loops" with Automake 1.17

From: Sebastian Pipping <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2025 03:57:12 +0200

Hi!

I saw output…

   aclocal-1.17: error: too many loops
   aclocal-1.17: Please contact <[email-masked]>.
    at /usr/share/automake-1.17/Automake/Channels.pm line 658.
           Automake::Channels::msg("automake", "", "too many loops") 
called at /usr/share/automake-1.17/Automake/ChannelDefs.pm line 230
           Automake::ChannelDefs::prog_error("too many loops") called at 
/usr/bin/aclocal-1.17 line 1227
   autoreconf-2.72: error: aclocal failed with exit status: 255

…earlier today and want to do as asked: Please contact 
<[email-masked]>.
The full reproducer is this:

   cd "$(mktemp -d)"
   git clone --depth 1 --branch 0.4.x 
https://github.com/Libvisual/libvisual/
   cd libvisual/libvisual-plugins
   ./autogen.sh

So far running "./autogen.sh" twice a la…

   ./autogen.sh || ./autogen.sh

…worked around the issue, but it's not a fix.  Is this issue known?
Any ideas for a true fix?

Best

Sebastian