Make sure you have /usr/ccs/bin/m4 installed. It's in package SUNWbtool (m4 is included in SUNWcsu in 2.4 and later).
Other causes are bugs in Solaris 2.3 and various revisions of patches. E.g., syslogd is broken in all 101318 patches between level -42 and -50. It works again in 101318-54.
For 2.4, you may need patch 102534-xx and/or 102697-xx.
In Solaris 2.6, syslogd again seems to be crash prone. You need 106439 (sparc) or 106440 (x86), rev -02 or later.