Cron Log Error Msg

[Chris J. Solarczyk]

I've noticed the following message in the cron log periodically:

"! unexpected pid returned 5058 (ignored)"

Server is an N Class HPUX 11. Any ideas why this is appearing? Cron still seems to be running OK.

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi
Can you tie the time of this error to a cron event ?

Paula

[Craig Rants]

What is the cron job that returned the pid error? Standard format looks like the entry below. Command, Start Time, Stop Time. Each one has an associated pid, search your log for the pid and you will probably find what command had the problem. I've seen that error before and it isn't going to kill anything.

> CMD: date >> /var/adm/messages; /sbin/dmesg - >> /var/adm/messages
> root 2248 c Fri Sep 21 16:30:02 MDT 2001
< root 2248 c Fri Sep 21 16:30:02 MDT 2001

GL,
C

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Chris:

There is an old (1993) Technical Knowledge Base entry that describes this situation. The message is generated for short-running jobs that exit before 'cron' has a change to register their pid. Perhaps this helps.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Sanjay_6 · Accepted solution]

Hi Chris,

check you patch level. Also take a look at this thread,

http://us-support3.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=4b615af00befdd3dd1/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000019596519

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Chris J. Solarczyk]

Sanjay was right on the money. The error message appears whenever we run "at -m". Apparently this message can be ignored. Check his link for more info.