--- a/configure.ac	Wed Oct 10 20:29:16 2007 +0000
+++ b/configure.ac	Thu Oct 11 17:29:39 2007 +0000
@@ -142,13 +142,21 @@
 dnl If we don't have msgfmt, then po/ is going to fail -- ensure that
 dnl AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT found it.
 
-if test x$MSGFMT = xno
+if test x$MSGFMT = xno -o x$MSGFMT$GMSGFMT = x
 then
 	AC_ERROR([
 
 The msgfmt command is required to build libpurple.  If it is installed
 on your system, ensure that it is in your path.  If it is not, install
 GNU gettext to continue.
+
+If you have msgfmt installed, but for some reason this error message
+is still displayed, you have encountered what appears to be a bug in
+third-party configure macros.  Try setting the MSGFMT environment
+variable to the absolute path to your msgfmt binary and trying
+configure again, like this:
+
+MSGFMT=/path/to/msgfmt ./configure ...
 ])
 fi