Starting MM Crontab

mumblebaj

@KristjanESPERANTO Sorry, typo, it is lower x. It start when I manually run npm start. When I manually run node --run start:x11 it works fine. When I manually run the script ./mm.sh it works fine. When calling it from the cron nothing. In my log I see the command node --run start:x11 but MM does not launch.

sdetweil

@mumblebaj is the cron jon in the user crontab (contrab -e) ? or root (sudo crontab -e) ?

if root, the pm2 job doesn’t exist there, it opnly exists under user who created the pm2 job

mumblebaj

@sdetweil in my user, crontab -e. It worked just fine until I updated my mirror this morning. I don’t use pm2 on my installation for my own reasons… 😉

sdetweil

@mumblebaj said in Starting MM Crontab:

It worked just fine until I updated my mirror this morning.

only MM update?

note that we changed the startup strings.

“start”: “node --run start:x11”,

mumblebaj

@sdetweil Yep, only MM update. Let me try start: node --run start:x11 and see what happens.

KristjanESPERANTO

@mumblebaj Just an idea: Maybe the node version used in Cron could be to old. When you run a script manually in your terminal, your full user environment (including things like .bashrc or .zshrc) is loaded. Cron runs in a much more minimal environment — it often doesn’t load your shell config files, so tools like nvm (Node Version Manager) might not be available.

How to fix it:

Use the full path to Node: Find it with which node and use that path in your cron job.
Set the environment manually in cron: You can define your PATH at the top of the cron file.
Source nvm in your script: If you use nvm, add source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh and nvm use <version> before calling node.

mumblebaj

@KristjanESPERANTO Thanks Kristjan. But I don’t see how updating MM could cause this. I only updated MM with Sam’s upgrade script. Don’t see how that has changed anything with regards to how Crontab works. Maybe it is related to changing the launch to node --run start. I can see the command being fired in the log but it does not launch MM like it did before the upgrade.

Anyhow, I manually launch it for now till I find a suitable solution.

sdetweil

@mumblebaj did you use npm start before?

it ‘may’ be the path as @KristjanESPERANTO mentioned

so from the user command line do

which node

and use that result in the cron command

mumblebaj

@sdetweil Hi Sam. I have always used npm. I have just been reading through the PR-3764 and i agree with your arguments in that it could have breaking affects for how we do things as both users and devs. Case in point.

However, the forum is about new things and moving forward, so I agree with @KristjanESPERANTO on that point of view as well.

I have now resolved my script issue and am now able to launch from the cron again. 😉

For somebody who may have the same issue, this is how I solved for it.

export DISPLAY=:0
cd ~/MagicMirror
npm run start:x11

The above has solved it for me now.

mumblebaj

@sdetweil Stupid question, how do I mark this as resolved?