Why is only one wget command working in my crontab?

Question

I wish to fetch content from a PHP script on my server two times a day, altering a query variable lang to set what language we want, and save this content in two language specific files. This is my crontab:

*/15 * * * * ~root/apache.sh > /var/log/checkapache.log
10 0 * * * wget -O /path/to/file-sv.sql "http://mydomain.com/path/?lang=sv"
11 0 * * * wget -O /path/to/file-en.sql "http://mydomain.com/path/?lang=en"

The problem is that only the first wget command line is being executed (or to be precise: the only file that is being written is /path/to/file-sv.sql). If I switch the second and the third row, /path/to/file-en.sql gets written instead. The first line always runs as expected, no matter where it is.

I then tried using lynx -dump "http://mydomain.com/path/?lang=xx" > /path/to/file-xx.sql to no avail; still only the first lynx line executed successfully. Even mixing wget and lynx did not change this!

Getting kinda desperate! Am I missing something? There are thousands of articles on crontab (combined with) wget or lynx, but all seems to cover basic setups and syntax. Does anyone got a clue of what I am doing wrong?

Thanks,
Alexander

Are you sure that whenever you access http://mydomain.com/path/?lang=en something is returned ? have you tried this from a command line to see what happens (wget -O - http://mydomain.com/path/?lang=en) ? — Torian, Feb 02 '11 at 21:17
I would try erasing and recreating the carriage return between 2 and 3. — Antonius Bloch, Feb 02 '11 at 21:24
Best practice is to specify the full path to the executables in crontab. Like: "/usr/bin/wget". I don't think this would help in your case, since one of the crons works. — Antonius Bloch, Feb 02 '11 at 21:26
@Antonius Bloch: I'm sorry, what is the carriage return, and how is this done? — Alexander Wallin, Feb 02 '11 at 21:32
@afEkenholm: What does the http://mydomain.com server have to say about the second request ? Does it see it and what does it do with it ? — user9517, Feb 02 '11 at 22:35

score 50 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 02 '11 at 22:34

50

Try adding newline at the end of your crontab.

answered Feb 02 '11 at 22:34

gelraen

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You're a godsend! That did it! I'd vote you up if I had the reputation. :) – Alexander Wallin Feb 02 '11 at 22:48
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@gelraen But... why? – Samuel Jun 11 '17 at 06:07

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 27 '19 at 13:37

I just spent some time trying the above answers (adding newlines, deleting newlines, etc.) on a system running cronie. Finally found there is a bug in cronie 1.5.3 that only executes the first cron job for each user. It's fixed in 1.5.4

https://github.com/cronie-crond/cronie/issues/30

Hope this saves someone some time...

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 02 '11 at 21:32

2

There's something about the text that's wrong. Edit your crontab in vim then show invisible characters.

:set invlist

You should be able to see and then correct it.

answered Feb 02 '11 at 21:32

bahamat

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Wrong how? How do I edit it in Vim? I tried rewriting the whole file in the case that copy-pasting would cause problems. – Alexander Wallin Feb 02 '11 at 21:55
@afEkenholm: how do you edit it now? – bahamat Feb 02 '11 at 22:12
1

@bahamat: `# crontab -e` – Alexander Wallin Feb 02 '11 at 22:13
@afEkenholm: do this: `EDITOR=vim crontab -e` – bahamat Feb 02 '11 at 22:14
@bahamat: Everything looks just fine. Got a purple `$` at the end of each line? – Alexander Wallin Feb 02 '11 at 22:17
@afEkenholm: Did you also type `:set invlist`? – bahamat Feb 02 '11 at 22:17
@bahamat Sure did. That's when they appeared. – Alexander Wallin Feb 02 '11 at 22:21

alvosu · Answer 4 · 2011-02-02T22:23:35.453

1

Try add redirect, to debug crontab(or read root mail):

11 0 * * * wget -O /path/to/file-en.sql "http://mydomain.com/path/?lang=en" > /tmp/crontab_ouptput 2> /tmp/crontab_error

Also run 'wget -O /path/to/file-en.sql "http://mydomain.com/path/?lang=en"' from console.

Also use 'crontab -e' for validation new crontab.

Also, try delete not working line and retype it from keyboard.

Backup corntab and run command:

crontab -l | crontab -

edited Feb 02 '11 at 22:23

answered Feb 02 '11 at 21:31

alvosu

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Adding `/tmp/crontab_ouptput 2> /tmp/crontab_error` only works for the first line. Running the command from the console works just fine. Rewrote the whole file with my bare hands, but nothing changed. – Alexander Wallin Feb 02 '11 at 22:01
Backup crontab and try: crontab -l | crontab - – alvosu Feb 02 '11 at 22:23
Thanks for the efforts, @alvosu, but a simple newline did the trick! – Alexander Wallin Feb 02 '11 at 22:49

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 05 '22 at 06:06

0

I also met with the same problem today. I found that it's caused by my server not using the same timezone I am at.

I fixed it by changing the timezone on the server (CentOS 7) with the command:

timedatectl list-timezones
timedatectl set-timezone <My timezone>

answered Jun 05 '22 at 06:06

Zidong

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As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community Jun 16 '22 at 19:00

Why is only one wget command working in my crontab?

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