[SOLVED] Crontab Script Not Running

th1bill · 12-08-2010, 05:04 PM

Quote:

*/2 * * * * /home/willis/changer

# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# | .------------- hour (0 - 23)
# | | .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# | | | .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
# | | | | .----- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
# | | | | |
# * * * * * command to be executed

I opened "crontab -e" in the Terminal and in nano I copied and pasted the first line of this copied script, leaving all the notated lines out. Each time I manually run changer by clicking and selecting "Run" it changes my Wallpaper but this does not happen automatically no matter how many times I reboot.

Does anyone know what "Stupid" did to mess up a perfectly good plan?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

barriehie · 12-08-2010, 05:26 PM

I think you're supposed to have:

Code:

[when to run] user command

repo · 12-09-2010, 01:45 AM

First, cron has a limited PATH, so make sure to give the whole path to all commands and files.
Take a look in the logfiles for errors.
Cron will sent a mail to the user, if there are problems.
Perhaps you can post the script.

Or try wallpapoz for gnome:
http://wallpapoz.akbarhome.com/

Kind regards

catkin · 12-09-2010, 03:51 AM

cron does not know about your desktop's X server.

If you know cron is running the script (echo running > /tmp/${0##*/}.$$ would tell), and you have only one X server running, you could try adding export DISPLAY='localhost:0.0' to your script.

Alternatively you could add a delayed loop to your script and launch it from the desktop's autostart facility instead of using cron -- its a neater solution than all those cron jobs anyway.

th1bill · 12-10-2010, 03:49 PM

I have marked the string Solved because I found Wally and I can start it from the GUI Menue.