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Re: running applscripts from a cron file
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Re: running applscripts from a cron file


  • Subject: Re: running applscripts from a cron file
  • From: "Donald S. Hall" <email@hidden>
  • Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 22:36:33 -0700

Ben,

This came up about 2 months ago. The messages below may indicate your
problem. I publish a shareware program called Script Timer that will do what
you want. Since it runs in your user process group, it doesn't try to do any
messaging across a group boundary.

HTH,

Don


> I have the latest version of Mac OS X. I am trying to get cron to run a
> script that loads a web page. The script works fine. I cant seem to get
> this to be reliable. I have classic open and I rely on Ido script
> scheduler. That works without a problem. Any suggestions? Here is the
> line in my crontab.
>
> 30 * * * * osascript
> /Users/bcompton/Documents/Scripts/Iwon-Icab


From a previous thread on the AppleScript Users' Mailing List:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > On Monday, November 12, 2001, at 09:54 PM, Gary Beberman wrote:
> >
> >> I am trying to make a script run automatically in OS X 10.1 using
> >> crontab. Whenever I do, the script starts. And I immediately get an
> >> error dialog telling me:
> >>
> >> "Application isn't running"
> >>
> >> The strange thing is that the application is running. Even this simple
> >> script trips
> >>
> >> tell application "Finder"
> >> open file "OS X:Users:Shared:somefile"
> >> end tell
> >>
> >> And the stranger thing is that I can run the script from within
> >> Terminal just fine. If, from the comand line, I call the script the
> >> same way I call it in crontab, it runs perfectly.
> >>
> >> What's different in crontab? What can I do about it to get my
> >> Applescripts to run?
> >
> > You're seeing a security "feature." It has to do with Mach messages,
> > which form the guts of Apple Events on Mac OS X. For security reasons,
> > processes in Mach are segregated into "process groups", and a process in
> > one group is not allowed to send messages to a process in a different
> > group. Because cron gets launched at boot time, it's in root's process
> > group, while every application launched by your login (including the
> > Finder) is in your process group. Therefore, a script run by cron can't
> > talk to any application that you launched.
> >
> > There's something of a bug in AppleScript here, too -- at its level, it
> > can see the application, so it tells the Apple Event Manager to send it
> > a message, and you get a surprising error.
> >
> > It's not clear what the truly correct solution is here -- there are
> > valid security reasons for keeping the process group restrictions in
> > place. In the meantime, what can you do? Well, scripting additions
> > should still work, so you can use those. cron unfortunately makes sure
> > that only one instance of cron is ever running at once, so you can't
> > launch your own personal cron, though if you're feeling extra studly,
> > you could get the source for cron (it is open, after all) and modify it
> > appropriately.
> >
> >
> > --Chris Nebel
> > AppleScript Engineering

--
Donald S. Hall, Ph.D.
Apps & More Software Design, Inc.
http://www.theboss.net/appsmore
email@hidden


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