cron job runs, but not when scheduled

[Kevin Erickson_1]

I have a cron job that is scheduled to run at 11:45 each night, but job does not get started for 45-60 minutes after it is scheduled. The cron entry is:
45 23 * * * /home/kae/Load.sh
The first two lines of the script are:
#!/bin/ksh
echo "Load Stamp 1 `date`" > /tmp/kae.$$

When I look at this log file for the last couple of days, the date echoed is:
Load Stamp 1 Tue Nov 26 00:31:26 CST 2002

AND

Load Stamp 1 Wed Nov 27 00:29:49 CST 2002

Anyone have any thoughts?

[Michael Tully]

The first place to look is in the cron log, to make sure that job is starting at the specified time.
/var/adm/cron/log

If the entry is in here at the correct time, it must have something to do with the script your running. Do any other jobs have this problem?

[Steve Steel]

Hi

You may be hitting maximum cron jobs which will cause a reschedule.

look at the log and

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xf6dc0bce6f33d6118fff0090279cd0f9,00.html



Steve steel

Do not meddle in the affairs of Unix, for it is subtle and quick to core dump.

[john korterman]

Hi,
as already stated, it is probably a matter of reaching the queuedefs max. limit. To find out what causes this, you can examine each users' crontab under /var/spool/cron/crontabsand his/her atjobs under /var/spool/cron/atjobs

regards,
John K.

[Kevin Erickson_1]

Sorry to take so long to get back to this, work had me doing other things. I've looked into cron a bit and see that it is set up to do 100 simultaneous jobs. I have checked the log files and do not see any "full queue" type of messages. The version of cron that we are using on this machine is 82.9.1.29 (dated 02/06/17). I'm finding it very hard to believe that there would be 100 other processes queued up that would prevent this from starting for 30 or more minutes. Does anyone know of a way to check the number of cron jobs that are running on a machine at a given time?

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Kevin,

/var/adm/cron/log should show BOTH the start & end times for all cron jobs - as well as the command run. You can match them up by PID.
What time does the log show for the start of the cron job?
What does it show for the end time? Is that value equal to the perceived time diff?

Another thing to check is
the TZ variable defined for the user running the cron. Does it differ from your TZ?

Rgds,
Jeff

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi,

try to include also an:
ps -ef >> /tmp/kae.$$

to you script so as to get a list of processes that are executing at that same moment.

you might also check the load on the server at the same time.

Post the results.

Hope this helps!
Best Regards
Yogeeraj