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    A New Chapter for MagicMirror: The Community Takes the Lead
    Read the statement by Michael Teeuw here.

    pm2 doesnt work with crontab

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Troubleshooting
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    • plainbrokeP Offline
      plainbroke @Assassins
      last edited by

      @Assassins
      I would like to see this script. Please.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • plainbrokeP Offline
        plainbroke
        last edited by

        This is all I use in my crontab -e
        15 07 * * * pm2 start mm
        30 21 * * * pm2 stop all
        Shuts MM down at 9:30 pm
        Starts MM backup at 7:15 am
        EVERYDAY.
        I have a Black background color and the bar at the bottom using black background which makes it look like the screen is off basically.
        That way it doesn’t flood the room with light at night.
        Also less read / writes to the ssd drive I use for my MM.

        plainbrokeP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • plainbrokeP Offline
          plainbroke @plainbroke
          last edited by

          @sdetweil
          My old crontab does not work in debian 12 aka bookworm
          Is there something i need to add to it to get it to work again?
          Really liked how it worked and the fact that I was getting a fresh restart of mm every morning…

          15 07 * * * pm2 start mm
          30 21 * * * pm2 stop all
          

          Tried this too.

          15 07 * * * pi  pm2 start mm
          30 21 * * * pi  pm2 stop all
          
          S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • S Offline
            sdetweil @plainbroke
            last edited by

            @plainbroke what userid did the pm2 jobs get created under?

            Sam

            How to add modules

            learning how to use browser developers window for css changes

            plainbrokeP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • plainbrokeP Offline
              plainbroke @sdetweil
              last edited by plainbroke

              @sdetweil
              pi is my user. I know not very original or safe but it is on a closed network.
              that is why I tried the pi user in the crontab.
              and it shows up when I do crontab -l.
              So I think it is setup under pi correctly.
              Do I need to do it as root sudo crontab -e and use pi or root as the user?

              S karsten13K 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • S Offline
                sdetweil @plainbroke
                last edited by

                @plainbroke no. what fo the pm2 logs show?

                pm2 logs --lines=xxx
                xxx is number of most recent lines, default 15

                Sam

                How to add modules

                learning how to use browser developers window for css changes

                plainbrokeP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • karsten13K Offline
                  karsten13 @plainbroke
                  last edited by

                  @plainbroke

                  you can do cron restart with pm2 too, see https://pm2.keymetrics.io/docs/usage/restart-strategies/

                  S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • plainbrokeP Offline
                    plainbroke @sdetweil
                    last edited by

                    This post is deleted!
                    S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • S Offline
                      sdetweil @plainbroke
                      last edited by sdetweil

                      @plainbroke i mean after cron trying to start
                      pm2

                      set a cron entry for an hour from now stop MagicMirror and flush the logs

                      pm2 stop all
                      pm2 flush

                      see what the logs say then

                      Sam

                      How to add modules

                      learning how to use browser developers window for css changes

                      plainbrokeP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • S Offline
                        sdetweil @karsten13
                        last edited by

                        @karsten13 yes, but he wants stop and start

                        Sam

                        How to add modules

                        learning how to use browser developers window for css changes

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                        • plainbrokeP Offline
                          plainbroke @sdetweil
                          last edited by plainbroke

                          @sdetweil
                          Got ya, I miss understood before.
                          Running and waiting for results now…

                          Finally got results useing the proper path.
                          @sdetweil
                          You can mark this resolved.

                          S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • S Offline
                            sdetweil @plainbroke
                            last edited by

                            @plainbroke how long til it might trigger?

                            Sam

                            How to add modules

                            learning how to use browser developers window for css changes

                            plainbrokeP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • plainbrokeP Offline
                              plainbroke @sdetweil
                              last edited by

                              @sdetweil
                              From that post about an hour. and it was supposed to trigger this morning around 6:30 am.
                              It did not and it did not leave anything in the logs since last night when I pm2 stop all then pm2 flush. around 8:30 pm .
                              So that means cron job did nothing with pm2 over night
                              I have been experimenting so there are a couple different job lines.
                              I really expected something in the log. But this is all I get.

                              pi@MM:~ $ pm2 logs --lines=100
                              [TAILING] Tailing last 100 lines for [all] processes (change the value with --lines option)
                              /home/pi/.pm2/pm2.log last 100 lines:
                              /home/pi/.pm2/logs/mm-out.log last 100 lines:
                              /home/pi/.pm2/logs/mm-error.log last 100 lines:
                              

                              My Crontab on 2 different MM setups. I get the same nothing on both.
                              Both are running Bookworm and MM 2.3.1

                              05 20 * * * pi /usr/local/bin/pm2 start mm
                              15 07 * * * pi pm2 start mm
                              30 21 * * * pi pm2 stop mm
                              05 20 * * * root /usr/local/bin/pm2 start mm
                              15 07 * * * root pm2 start mm
                              30 21 * * * root pm2 stop mm
                              
                              C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • C Offline
                                chrisfr1976 @plainbroke
                                last edited by chrisfr1976

                                @plainbroke

                                Hi,

                                try this:

                                crontab -e with connected user:

                                05 20 * * * /usr/bin/pm2 start mm
                                15 07 * * * /usr/bin/pm2 start mm
                                30 21 * * * /usr/bin/pm2 stop mm
                                
                                • sudo crontab -e is not necessary.
                                • I do not understand the start at 20:05 (first line)
                                • my pm2 is in /usr/bin
                                • always use full path in crontab

                                If you’re not sure where PM2 is you can use find / -iname pm2 in the console. Important is the full path in crontab.
                                /home/chris/.nvm/versions/node/v22.9.0/lib/node_modules/pm2/pm2 would be an alternative for me.

                                Regards, Chris.

                                plainbrokeP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • plainbrokeP Offline
                                  plainbroke @chrisfr1976
                                  last edited by plainbroke

                                  @chrisfr1976 said in pm2 doesnt work with crontab:

                                  find / -iname pm2

                                  /usr/local/bin/pm2
                                  /usr/local/lib/node_modules/pm2
                                  /usr/local/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2
                                  /usr/local/lib/node_modules/pm2/lib/templates/logrotate.d/pm2
                                  /usr/local/lib/node_modules/pm2/pm2
                                  
                                  
                                  /home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/.bin/pm2
                                  /home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/pm2
                                  /home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2
                                  /home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/pm2/lib/templates/logrotate.d/pm2
                                  /home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/pm2/pm2
                                  
                                  

                                  Which is the true one and one to use?

                                  C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • C Offline
                                    chrisfr1976 @plainbroke
                                    last edited by

                                    @plainbroke
                                    Then use this:
                                    /usr/local/bin/pm2

                                    Regards, Chris.

                                    plainbrokeP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • plainbrokeP Offline
                                      plainbroke @chrisfr1976
                                      last edited by plainbroke

                                      @chrisfr1976
                                      @sdetweil
                                      Thank you both for the help.
                                      /usr/local/bin/pm2 restart mm
                                      worked so I set it up to stop now and if (fingers crossed) works.
                                      I am golden.
                                      Wonder why I never had to use the full path before?
                                      Maybe my pm2 path was /home/pi/pm2 before.
                                      Doesn’t really matter as long as it works, I am a happy camper.
                                      It works.
                                      Thank you so much… I will mark this solved.
                                      Well I would if I could… strange.

                                      By the way " which pm2 " shows the path that I needed to use in crontab -e

                                      S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                      • S Offline
                                        sdetweil @plainbroke
                                        last edited by sdetweil

                                        @plainbroke awesome

                                        i should have remembered the path problem

                                        Sam

                                        How to add modules

                                        learning how to use browser developers window for css changes

                                        plainbrokeP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • plainbrokeP Offline
                                          plainbroke @sdetweil
                                          last edited by

                                          @sdetweil
                                          Did the new MM and or trixie change the way crontab works? Mine has stopped working since the update to 2.33. I tried again tonight and will see if the changes work or not… also my mm.json file quit working. Hind sight is 20/20 should have left well enough alone…

                                          S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • S Offline
                                            sdetweil @plainbroke
                                            last edited by

                                            @plainbroke I do not know

                                            Sorry, I have to ask, you DID use a new sd card, right?

                                            What does /var/log/syslog say about the crontab execution

                                            Did you use crontab -e
                                            Or sudo crontab -e

                                            1st is run as user who executed the crontab command
                                            2nd is run as root

                                            Sam

                                            How to add modules

                                            learning how to use browser developers window for css changes

                                            plainbrokeP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0

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