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I have configured crontab to have the following entry:

*/2 * * * * source /home/ubuntu/cronenv/python2.7/bin/activate && python /home/ubuntu/trial.py  >> /var/log/mycron/trial.log 2>&1 && deactivate

By tailing the /var/log/syslog file, I can verify that the cron runs every two minutes. This is the entry in /var/log/syslog every two minutes

Nov  8 10:52:01 ip-172-31-0-41 CRON[2023]: (ubuntu) CMD (source /home/ubuntu/cronenv/python2.7/bin/activate && python /home/ubuntu/trial.py  >> /var/log/mycron/trial.log 2>&1 && deactivate)

By running the command in terminal, it runs as intended and creates trial.log file in /var/log/mycron/

The folder has all the required permissions as shown below:

drwxrwxrwx  2 root   root     4096 Nov  8 11:02 mycron

Please help me in figuring out the issue.

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  • You are missing the PATH in your cron. You either set the PATH env var correctly or use the absolute path to python Commented Nov 8, 2017 at 11:04
  • Shouldn't activating the virtualenv take care of python path? Commented Nov 8, 2017 at 11:08
  • 1
    Probably source is failing, so && short circuits. Try redirecting stderr/out to a file from the first source. You should see the error. (aside, this is one of the nice things about using systemd timers instead of cron, debugging is way easier) Commented Nov 8, 2017 at 11:10
  • @ChrisDown let me try that and check the output Commented Nov 8, 2017 at 11:12
  • 1
    If you're using Ubuntu, then cron's default shell /bin/sh is dash - which doesn't support the source synonym for . Commented Nov 8, 2017 at 11:49

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It seems likely that source is failing, so && short circuits. Try redirecting stderr/out to a file from the first source and you should see the error.

If trial.py ran at all, you should at least see trial.log created by the shell. The fact that it's not created suggests that this code was never run.

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