Help with launchd

I have been trying to get launchd working with rss2email for the last few days with no luck. I think I am close, but no cigar yet. Here is what I have managed so far.

1) created this plist file, com.macattack.r2e.plist, in ~/Library/LaunchAgents

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.macattack.r2e</string>

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/Users/macattack/rss2email/r2e.sh</string>
</array>

<key>Nice</key>
<integer>1</integer>

<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>1800</integer>

<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>​

2) Created an sh script, r2e.sh, located in ~/rss2email as shown below:

cd /Users/macattack/rss2email/ ; ./r2e run​

3) Installed rss2email and made sure it works from running in terminal both "./r2e run" and "./r2e.sh". Both work well and send the feeds to my email address.

4) I added the rss2email folder to .bash_profile to look like this:

# Setting PATH for Python 2.7
# The orginal version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:/Users/macattack/rss2email:${PATH}"
export PATH ​

5) When I type "echo $PATH" the output is:

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:/Users/macattack/rss2email:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin​

6) When I look in Console, this is the output I get:

8/22/11 1:01:38 AM com.macattack.r2e[541] I: Processing [2] "index.rss"
8/22/11 1:01:46 AM com.macattack.r2e[541] Fatal error: could not authenticate with mail server "smtp.gmail.com:465" as user "email@address"
8/22/11 1:01:46 AM com.macattack.r2e[541] Check your config.py file to confirm that SMTP_SERVER and other mail server settings are configured properly
8/22/11 1:01:46 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502[183] (com.macattack.r2e[541]) Exited with exit code: 1​

Yet, when I run "./r2e run" or "./r2e.sh", it emails just fine and there is no problem with the smtp server authenticating. I have come a long way and learned a lot. I feel like I am close but I just can't seem to get it working correctly. I am a complete noob at this and I have just been piecing together what I can find on the forums. I was not able to get the r2e to run directly in the plist file. I tried many different ways. That is why I created the script file. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Maybe a Python issue?

I have been working on this more and searching around on the net and I think it may be a Python version problem. I had to install Python 2.7 in order to get the rss2email to work properly from the working directory. So, I am wondering how to specify that the r2e script uses Python 2.7 instead of the 2.6, 2.5, or 2.3 that I found on my system. I am running SL 10.6.8 if that helps. I tried adding:

<key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
<dict>
<key>PATH</key>
<string>/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/Users/macattack/rss2email</string>
<key>PYTHONPATH</key>
<string>/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin</string>
</dict>​

However, this did not help and it still will not authenticate the email. I really need to get this working as I have spent way too much time on it already. I am about ready to install Ubuntu virtually and just run crontab. Crontab seems much easier. I set it up on another machine and it ran fine under Ubuntu 11.04. I just don't like being defeated by something that seems like should be simple.

 

Got it!

It was a path issue for Python. I added /usr/local/bin to the PATH and it works! Maybe this will help someone else that runs into this problem.