i go to edit my crontab as root

crontab -e

stick in a new line and then try to exit with

:wq

like i usually would. but it always exits with some messgae about crontab was not edited. i go back into edit mode and it's true, my addition was not kept. can anyone help me. i go in as root and i haven't run across anything that would tell me why it wouldn't work.

can you tell us the error msg maybe?

crontab: no changes made to crontab

that's all it says

type :w instead of :wq and tell me if you get an error (and the error msg if any)

type just :w i get this in return.

"crontab.18950" 3L, 137C written

of cource i'm still in edit mode, so i type :q or :wq to get out and i still get the

"crontab: no changes made to crontab"

error. if i go back in to check to see, my addition is gone.

problem is still here. the :w acts like it writes. but when i exit :q the edit doesn't take. Help would be appreicated

This may sound stupid, but did you try using any other editor?
$EDITOR=emacs/any editor crontab -e

no i never used any other editor. just the "crontab -e" command itself. i could try it though. never used emacs so it might be a little difficult

i'm not sure the other editor choice will work. "vi crontab -e" just gives a bunch or ascii char or something. crontab -e lets you move around like your in vi, but like i said it won't store the changes. the permissions on the /usr/bin/crontab (which i think is the location, since you can type "crontab -e anywhere") are same on the server that doesn't work as the server that does let me edit upon ll:

-rwsr-xr-x (permissions on the server that does and does not let me edit)

so we are still not knowing why i doesn't work

vanquisher- turns out i think you were right. i think it's an editor problem not crontab itself or some kinda of priviledges problem. now i'll i need to do is reassign the editor to emacs. not real sure how to. i think it's something like this. if someone knows the exact syntax i'd appreicate. i've been looking a little bit but i haven't quite figured out the exact way to resign the editor yet.


> $EDITOR=/usr/bin/emacs crontab -e

or

> $EDITOR=/usr/bin/emacs

this did NOT work

> setenv EDITOR /usr/bin/pico

vanquisher- turns out i think you were right. i think it's an editor problem not crontab itself or some kinda of priviledges problem. now i'll i need to do is reassign the editor to emacs. not real sure how to. i think it's something like this. if someone knows the exact syntax i'd appreicate. i've been looking a little bit but i haven't quite figured out the exact way to resign the editor yet.

maybe

> $EDITOR=/usr/bin/emacs crontab -e

or

> $EDITOR=/usr/bin/emacs

this did NOT work. didn't recognize the setenv command

> setenv EDITOR /usr/bin/pico