diff --git a/meta/classes/autotools.bbclass b/meta/classes/autotools.bbclass
index 7536bac..2f462ff 100644
--- a/meta/classes/autotools.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes/autotools.bbclass
@@ -122,7 +122,9 @@ autotools_do_configure() {
 			# We avoid this by taking a copy here and then files cannot disappear.
 			if [ -d ${STAGING_DATADIR}/aclocal ]; then
 				mkdir -p ${B}/aclocal-copy/
-				cp ${STAGING_DATADIR}/aclocal/* ${B}/aclocal-copy/
+				# for scratch build this directory can be empty
+				# so avoid cp's no files to copy error
+				cp -r ${STAGING_DATADIR}/aclocal/. ${B}/aclocal-copy/
 				acpaths="$acpaths -I ${B}/aclocal-copy/"
 			fi
 			# autoreconf is too shy to overwrite aclocal.m4 if it doesn't look