Cron won't run!

[mrichmon]

1       *       *       *       *       touch /text.txt

No 'text.txt' after a minute however; not even after about 5 minutes.

Through this whole thread it seems that you are getting caught up by the difference between the environment that cron jobs run in and your standard user environment.

Try touching a file that does not require special permissions to touch. For example touch /tmp/text.txt

 

[tyr2]

1       *       *       *       *       touch /text.txt

No 'text.txt' after a minute however; not even after about 5 minutes.

You're misunderstanding the meaning of 5 time columns, a '1' in the first column means run at 1 minute after the hour (00:01 01:01..) rather than every minute.

If you want command to fire every minute put '*' in the first column, or if you want every five minutes put '*/5'.

The same applies for the other columns.

Do 'man 5 crontab' for full info on the contents of the crontab file.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Through this whole thread it seems that you are getting caught up by the difference between the environment that cron jobs run in and your standard user environment.

Try touching a file that does not require special permissions to touch. For example touch /tmp/text.txt

No, that is just being done as a test, to make sure that my crontab is working.

You're misunderstanding the meaning of 5 time columns, a '1' in the first column means run at 1 minute after the hour (00:01 01:01..) rather than every minute.

If you want command to fire every minute put '*' in the first column, or if you want every five minutes put '*/5'.

The same applies for the other columns.

Do 'man 5 crontab' for full info on the contents of the crontab file.

That worked! And it makes sense too.

Oddly enough, iCal is opening fairly often despite not being listed with 'sudo crontab -l', however it is listed in '/etc/crontab'. I just commented out all the lines of /etc/crontab; that seems to be working.

And I think I know why iCal worked that first time... I was doing the testing around midnight, and so when it opened 'five minutes late' it really was just launching at the correct time, but it was midnight.

Thanks tyr2!

 

[jeremy.king]

That worked! And it makes sense too.

I just PMed you the same thing

Glad you got it working!