[pOwah]

Since updating to 1.6.6 my main cron job hasn't been running as smoothly as before.

I've been getting:

Quote

setlock: fatal: unable to lock /tmp/cronlock.3798467.61685: temporary failure

as output in my Inbox hourly. I contact my webhost (Dreamhost), they kill the processes/delete the setlock files. The cron runs again - the first time after killng the processes is fine:

Quote

Starting HLstatsX:CE...
PID file created
Started successfully

...but every subsequent execution results in the setlock error above. I've even tried increasing the frequency to every 2 hours, to no avail...

It happened the odd time before 1.6.6 - but very rarely.

I should note, that this is only happening with both run_hlstats crons running under the same user - but set on different ports. The awards crons are working fine.

Any ideas?

[Rawh]

Can you show us your crontab lines? Maybe there's a typo somewhere which is causing the glitch.

[pOwah]

stats_main

cd /home/ghost_siteadmin/scripts && ./run_hlstats start

stats_awards - (no issues)

cd /home/ghost_siteadmin/scripts && ./hlstats-awards.pl

jcstats_main

cd /home/jc_stats_admin/scripts && ./run_hlstats start

stats_awards - (no issues)

cd /home/jc_stats_admin/scripts && ./hlstats-awards.pl

[pOwah]

No change all weekend... Any ideas?

[Rawh]

I would've attempted an answer if I had any idea what was going on. Sadly I'm not sure what it might be

[pOwah]

I'm with DreamHost, if that sheds a scrap of light? From what I see with other softwares, they tend to do things differently here and there :/

But yeah, it's only been since 1.6.6 - anything added/changed that relates to maybe detecting an already-running instance?

[LSPS]

What about the times specified for the jobs? Can you provide that as well? Are you running them all at the same specified time? In other words, running all crons at 0 */0 * * * ?

It really should not be a problem, but if you are, try staggering them by 5-10 minutes?

On my system, I run the awards on 22 0 **** daily while the other jobs are run at the top of the hour and then at 5 after.

[pOwah]

They were set to run evry hour, on the hour, i've since changed this to once every 2 hours, on the hour - still no luck... ;_;

[LSPS]

Think you missed it -

Stagger their time.

one starts at midnight, the next one up starts or runs at 12:15.

I run my awards at 11:59pm and a restart occurs at 12:15 - for example.

The lock files the cron trying to open multiples and this does appear to be at the linux level.

The PID's are created at time the script is run.

I do see there are some posts about on the internet regarding dreamhost and this very same error.

You would be best to contact them.

[pOwah]

I've tried their support, but when I pick their brains as to what could be causing it - they tell me the issue is beyond their scope of 'support' (can't be that difficult for them to have a look at the script, and suggest a fix..?).

I'll try the staggering, thanks

The stats appear to be working fine though. I've had 1 or 2 'Starting...PID file created... etc' outputs recently, so at least I know when there's a daemon crash/restart.

The only issue that remains (aside from the setlock one) is that I can now no longer browse through the Chat history, unless I change the URL to page=2 / page=3 etc, but I guess that's just cosmetic...

Thanks again for the replies, this Support is a lot better than others *cough*Dreamhost*cough*jFusion*cough*

[Packhead]

LSPS, on 07 March 2010 - 09:00 PM, said:

Think you missed it -

Stagger their time.

one starts at midnight, the next one up starts or runs at 12:15.

I run my awards at 11:59pm and a restart occurs at 12:15 - for example.

The lock files the cron trying to open multiples and this does appear to be at the linux level.

The PID's are created at time the script is run.

I do see there are some posts about on the internet regarding dreamhost and this very same error.

You would be best to contact them.

This is offtopic, but your awards script should be run after midnight, not before. Awards generates for the previous day's data. So say it's the 15th. You run awards at 11:59 on the 15th. You are generating awards for the 14th. That's why we say run awards after midnight so you generate the 15th as early as possible on the 16th.

[LSPS]

I will have to double check the time I set the awards. I know I did it both ways, and did encounter the day late awards previously. I had changed it a week or so ago, and it is running correctly now - so most definitely, that is indeed the correct way as you have clarified, my error on the response.

The awards are running at 00:15.

Thanks Much!