building gst-plugins-ugly-0.10.6 fails, in the configure stage:

NOTE: package gst-plugins-ugly-0.10.6: started
NOTE: package gst-plugins-ugly-0.10.6-r0: task do_configure: started
ERROR: function do_configure failed
ERROR: see log in /home/pieter/oe/pli-oe-7025/build/tmp/work/gst-plugins-ugly-0.10.6-r0/temp/log.do_configure.12158
NOTE: Task failed: /home/pieter/oe/pli-oe-7025/build/tmp/work/gst-plugins-ugly-0.10.6-r0/temp/log.do_configure.12158
NOTE: package gst-plugins-ugly-0.10.6-r0: task do_configure: failed

with at the bottom of log.do_configure:

configure: *** checking feature: lame mp3 encoder library ***
configure: *** for plug-ins: lame ***
checking for lame_init in -lmp3lame... yes
checking lame/lame.h usability... yes
checking lame/lame.h presence... yes
checking for lame/lame.h... yes
configure: error: cannot run test program while cross compiling
See `config.log' for more details.

and the part containing the error in config.log:

configure:30978: checking for lame_init in -lmp3lame
configure:31008: ccache mipsel-linux-gcc -o conftest -I/home/pieter/oe/pli-oe-7025/build/tmp/staging/
configure:31014: $? = 0
configure:31018: test -z
test ! -s conftest.err
configure:31021: $? = 0
configure:31024: test -s conftest
configure:31027: $? = 0
configure:31040: result: yes
configure:31059: checking lame/lame.h usability
configure:31071: ccache mipsel-linux-gcc -c -I/home/pieter/oe/pli-oe-7025/build/tmp/staging/mipsel-li
configure:31077: $? = 0
configure:31081: test -z
test ! -s conftest.err
configure:31084: $? = 0
configure:31087: test -s conftest.o
configure:31090: $? = 0
configure:31100: result: yes
configure:31104: checking lame/lame.h presence
configure:31114: mipsel-linux-gcc -E -I/home/pieter/oe/pli-oe-7025/build/tmp/staging/mipsel-linux/inc
configure:31120: $? = 0
configure:31140: result: yes
configure:31175: checking for lame/lame.h
configure:31182: result: yes
configure:31200: error: cannot run test program while cross compiling
See `config.log' for more details.

When I remove

AC_TRY_RUN([
#include <lame/lame.h>
int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
  printf("%d\n", MEDIUM);
  return 0;
}
      ],
      [LAME_CFLAGS="-DGSTLAME_PRESET"],
      [LAME_CFLAGS=""]
    )

from configure.ac, the package configures without a problem.

Is my autoconf-2.61 too old? (or too new perhaps?...)

correction, though I have autoconf-2.61 on my build system, oe is using autoconf-2.59. (as is everybody else I guess, this is the latest version in the dreambox branch)

Ah, of course, good of you to notice!
Indeed, lame is built as a dependency of some other package.
I'll have a look and see whether I can avoid lame being probed in the configure stage.