[SOLVED] Cron job not running

Dain_Bramage · 05-04-2020, 02:19 AM

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could tell me why the below command will run in terminal but not as a cron job.

Code:

0 3 * * * /usr/bin/mysqldump -u mike nextcloud > /home/mike/Backups/nextcloud-$(date +%d%b%y).sql

I was following directions here.

Thank you.

shruggy · 05-04-2020, 02:44 AM

Does it require password for user mike to connect to the database?

pan64 · 05-04-2020, 02:50 AM

you ought to send stderr into a file too (because the error message is probably there). Or it is mailed to the owner of this cron.

JJJCR · 05-04-2020, 02:56 AM

check out links below might help:

https://superuser.com/questions/1655...-use-mysqldump

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...assword-prompt

As pointed out by Shruggy, you might need the password.

Have you tried putting that command to a ".sh" script and run it manually, to check if it works or not?

Dain_Bramage · 05-04-2020, 04:04 AM

It was the date.

According to this post here

Quote:

If your crontab command has a % symbol in it, cron tries to interpret it. So if you were using any command with a % in it (such as a format specification to the date command) you will need to escape it.

Code:

* 3 * * * /usr/bin/mysqldump -u mike nextcloud > /home/mike/Backups/nextcloud-$(date +\%d\%b\%y).sql

worked. It never ceases to amaze me the myriad of different ways cron can trip you up.

JJJCR · 05-05-2020, 01:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dain_Bramage

It was the date.

According to this post here

Code:

* 3 * * * /usr/bin/mysqldump -u mike nextcloud > /home/mike/Backups/nextcloud-$(date +\%d\%b\%y).sql

worked. It never ceases to amaze me the myriad of different ways cron can trip you up.

Cool, glad you found the issue and Thanks for sharing the solution. Hopefully this will help others too. Cheers!