pm2 doesnt work with crontab

plainbroke

@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

sdetweil

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

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?

sdetweil

@plainbroke no. what fo the pm2 logs show?

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

karsten13

@plainbroke

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

plainbroke

This post is deleted!

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

sdetweil

@karsten13 yes, but he wants stop and start

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.

sdetweil

@plainbroke how long til it might trigger?

plainbroke

@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

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.

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?

chrisfr1976

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

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

sdetweil

@plainbroke awesome

i should have remembered the path problem

plainbroke

@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…

sdetweil

@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

plainbroke

@sdetweil
Using NVMe disk 256gb smallest I had on hand. 3 of them are exhibiting the same issues. I did try going back to Bookworm and I am still getthing a blank screen after a while. I ran npm run config:check it says all is good in the config.js ////
I am currently reloading from scratch.
Which OS is better for the 2.33 MM? 32 or 64 bit?
Wondering if I was using 32 bit and now the 64 bit is messing with me… So dang many things can mess with these little devices.

I only use crontab -e, should I try sudo crontab -e

sdetweil

@plainbroke no, without sudo is best

Maybe pm2 isn’t in the path when crontab fires
Check the syslog for crontab errors

32 bit is about to be trouble.

The latest nodejs version, 24, has dropped builds for 32 bit