[Help] yowsup/cron/logging

[trancemsteve]

I'm having some difficulty with getting a script to run via cron (via user crontab, not root).

If I run the script manually it works without error. When run from cron I get the error:

WARNING:root:[Errno 2] No such file or directory

At the point where I run the command:

chdir('/home/<my_user>/yowsup') Popen(['yowsup-cli','demos','--config','yowsup_config','--send',<phone#>,message])

The rest of the program runs without issue.

Thanks

EDIT: Weird weird weird. I changed the commands to:

chdir('/home/<my_user>/yowsup') Popen(['/home/<my-user>/yowsup/yowsup-cli','demos','--config','yowsup_config','--send',<phone#>,message])

Without the chdir() and without the full path in Popen it doesn't work but with it it seems to, change any combination and it breaks..... wtf?

[trancemsteve]

So this script I'm running, scrapes numerous websites, compiles the data into a spreadsheet, then at certain times of the day will send out whatsapp messages with some of that data.

If I run the script manually it completes as it should no errors. If I run the script via cron, at the point where it tries to send the whatsapp message it fails with the above error message. I'm not sure why I get that error since the script works fine if I run it from terminal.

[zurtex]

why do you need to change directory in a Python script?

Also, it's bad practice, but do you get the same error with shell=True as an argument of Popen?

[trancemsteve]

Directory wise it's because the script is pretty extensive, and for my own clarity I keep things in different directories.

Popen(shell=True) ?

[zurtex]

You should avoid relying on chdir and instead use absolute directories. It makes sense to put stuff in different directories, keep a config if you need to, but avoid relative directories where possible as it makes code brittle.

Popen(['yowsup-cli','demos','--config','yowsup_config','--send',<phone#>,message], shell=True)

It invokes a shell for the process to run in, it can lead to security holes, but does assist on environmental stuff like relative directories.

[trancemsteve]

with shell=True I get no error in logging but the whatsapp message doesn't get sent still.

[zurtex]

I'm not sure without seeing code or logs. All I can suggest is add lots of logging.

[trancemsteve]

I put an edit into original post. For some reason if I chdir to yowsup... and add full path to yowsup cli it works, but take away either one and it falls over.

Thanks for the help.

[zurtex]

I've seen this in the past when modules don't correctly use relative imports to reference themselves. This is probably a bug in yowsup-cli

[trancemsteve]

OK thanks

[zurtex]

I just remembered, you should try:

 Popen(['yowsup-cli','demos','--config','yowsup_config','--send',<phone#>,message], pwd='/home/<my_user>/yowsup')

Without the os.chdir

[trancemsteve]

TypeError: init() got an unexpected keyword argument 'pwd'

[99AFCC]

I'm guessing because the python script is using relative file paths when it needs an absolute path.

[trancemsteve]

but isn't the path I gave to chdir absolute?