Cron troubles

caps_phisto · 01-25-2005, 08:26 PM

I am having a wee bit o' trouble with cron today....
I have been trying to setup cron to wake me up in the morning (alram clock)
I have made sure that I am listed in /etc/cron.allow
I have made my own script in my home directory and I run this in my cron file that I make by issuing the "crontab -e" command.
Yet it produces no sound.
I checked my command in the command line and I know this works:

Code:

mplayer -really-quiet -playlist /home/<my user here>/.playlist

Figured it might be an mplayer issue so I placed this command in place of the mplayer command above, in my script:

Code:

sox /home/<my user here>/Metallica/TheCallOfKtulu.ogg - ossdsp /dev/sdp

Again, in cron this does not work, but if I issue it at a command line it works like a charm....

My /var/log/cron output is:

Code:

Jan 25 20:53:51 dhcppc5 crontab[6267]: (user) REPLACE (user)
Jan 25 20:53:51 dhcppc5 crontab[6267]: (user) END EDIT (user)
Jan 25 20:54:01 dhcppc5 crond[2628]: (user) RELOAD (cron/user)
Jan 25 20:56:11 dhcppc5 crontab[6347]: (user) BEGIN EDIT (user)
Jan 25 20:56:19 dhcppc5 crontab[6347]: (user) REPLACE (user)
Jan 25 20:56:19 dhcppc5 crontab[6347]: (user) END EDIT (user)
Jan 25 20:57:01 dhcppc5 crond[2628]: (user) RELOAD (cron/user)

The alarm was supposed to go off a minute after each "edit" above.

Thanks in advance.

PS-I do OWN that Metallica song! 'Cause we all know that METALLICA RULES!

leonscape · 01-25-2005, 08:52 PM

For your script try:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
mplayer -really-quiet -playlist /home/user/.playlist > /home/user/m.log 2>&1

This will give you a log to look at, to see what the output from mplayer was.
And have you really named the playlist ".playlist"?

I've tried it with a single song, and it worked.

Code:

#!/bin/sh
mplayer -really-quiet /home/user/song.mp3 > /home/user/mp.log 2>&1

caps_phisto · 01-26-2005, 11:18 AM

Yes, I really did name my playlist ".playlist"...

Thanks for the extra log command there, I am not at my home PC and cannot try it out. I will as soon as I can though.

Thanks

caps_phisto · 01-26-2005, 07:04 PM

Added that log command to the script. Ran it with cron and again the commands did not run. The output did not make it to the log I created.

But, again if I ran that command in the command line it all works...this is really weird.

Thanks again

leonscape · 01-26-2005, 07:11 PM

Whats the crontab line your using? and did you try it with a single file?
Once you've edited the crontab do a crontab -l and see what it produces.

grimthingcom · 02-13-2005, 05:21 PM

First of all, you need the full path name to the script in your crontab, e.g.:

Code:

20 6 * * 1-5 /home/user/scriptname

Secondly, make sure your script is chmod'ed executable (700 will be fine).

Read this if you're still having trouble.

caps_phisto · 02-18-2005, 06:49 AM

Hey Grim!

Yeah I read that article you made a while back! I was trying to reproduce it with Fedora Core 3 but it does not seem to be working. I did use the full path name in my cron file when I created it the first time, it was still a no go. I even tried just using the command in the script instead and again it was no go. This is really wierd.

audibel · 03-06-2005, 10:50 PM

I'm having the exact same problem... Anyone know what's going on?