Why putting a script in /etc/cron.hourly is not working?

Question

I put an executable script in /etc/cron.hourly, but that script didn't run every hour actually it never runs at all.

Here is the script(Hour-sound) that i made:

#!/bin/bash
mplayer ~/Music/sfx_msg-highlight.wv &> /dev/null &
spd-say -r -50 -p 50 -t male3  "The time now is $(date +"%l %p")"
notify-send "It's: " "$(date +"%l %p") now." -i ~/Pictures/"first tee.png" -t 5000

My crontab is:

DISPLAY=":0.0"
XAUTHORITY="/home/naruto/.Xauthority"
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="/run/user/1000"

0 * * * * /home/naruto/Hour-sound.sh

While the mplayer and spd-say commands are run correctly, the notify-send is not. I also tried redirecting error to a file:

0 * * * * /home/naruto/Hour-sound.sh 2>/tmp/error

But that showed no output. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

As you've probably seen in the comments to your question, the cronjobs in /etc/cron.hourly (and the other, similar directories) are executed by run-parts. run-parts is a little picky about filenames. By default it doesn't execute files whose filenames contain anything other than (all of those from ASCII)

• uppercase letters
• lowercase letters
• digits
• underscores
• dashes ("minus signs")

So if your script has a filename of for example "myscript.sh", it just is ignored, because run-parts does not like the dot.

Answer 2

One problem is that you're trying to run a graphical application (notify-send) from cron. That takes a little tweaking. You need to set XAUTHORITY and DISPLAY variables in the crontab so that it can connect to your running X session and you need to set XDG_RUNTIME_DIR so it can connect to your pulseaudio session. Unfortunately, these need to be set in the crontab itself, so you can't use /etc/cron.hourly. Instead, run crontab -e and add these lines:

DISPLAY=":0.0"
XAUTHORITY="/home/YOURUSERNAME/.Xauthority"
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="/run/user/1000"

0 * * * * /path/to/script.sh 

Change the value of XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to whatever is returned when you echo them from a terminal. On my system, this is:

$ echo $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
/run/user/1001

It will probably be the same on yours, but check first. Now, your script will run every hour and should work as expected.

Answer 3

A script ending with .sh is not executed in /etc/cron.hourly folder:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=308911
Links or binaries inside a directory handled by run-pars (like /etc/cron.daily) will not run if a period is part of their name.

rename the script

mv /etc/cron.hourly/Hour-sound.sh /etc/cron.hourly/Hour-sound

or put the script-call into

/etc/crontab

which allows the .sh ending

Answer 4

Don't use script with extension (abc.sh) and add your need place. (cron.hours).

add your code stuff to abc file and save.(for your need) (this should be bash command)

use

sudo chmod +x abc

command to make executable file.

edit etc/cronrtab file

there has a predefined few lines.edit from your minutes to hours line and save it.

then it will run properly.

Answer 5

An addition to the accepted answer.

You can test your scripts under /etc/cron.* first to ensure it will be executed.

Example, you have this script: /etc/cron.hourly/sample-script. Execute the below command to check if it is accepted by run-parts:

run-parts --test /etc/cron.hourly

The output should be something like this:

/etc/cron.hourly/sample-script
/etc/cron.hourly/some-other-script
...

If your script is listed in the output, then you're good to go.