On Wednesday, July 5, 2017 at 11:23:22 AM UTC-6, 6502en...{at}gmail.com wrote:
> "Where, exactly, is your script?"
> 
> - well, I don't know. How can I find that out?
> 
> "What, exactly, is your cron entry?"
> 
> - At the bash I typed: "crontab -e"
> - then I selected "nano" as editor
> - then I typed into the last line:" */1 * * * * /home/pi/startSerial"
> - then I pressed:""
> - then "Y"
> - then "Return"
> 
> --------------------
> "so giving full path to stuff in /usr/local or 
> placed otherwise in "strange" locations (basically anything except 
> /bin,/sbin,/usr/bin,/usr/sbin) is more or less a must for cron jobs."
> 
> You mean it should be saved in /usr/local ? How can I save it there?
As described above, nano offers just to save it with
"".
> 
> Thanks for your help!

The /home/pi/startSerial you've entered explicitly tells cron to run the
startSerial script in the /home/pi directory.  there is nothing else it
will try or guess.  That script obviously works fine as when you run it
manually, it works.  So your 
attention should be on the CRON job.  That line may not be proper and you
might want to copy the line from the text and then copy it into the editor
then save it the file.  That is a guess at this point.  Ther eis no need to
copy that script anywhere 
else.

CRON does have a log file, but you need to turn it on. the log file is
placed in the /var/logs directory under the name cron.  you can inspect
that file and then you will know what the issue is.  The info to turn on
the cron log is at the end of the 
document.

*When running against a timer, it is best to use CRON, always, not an
endless loop in a script -- that is very bad practice as scripts are meant
to run and then stop and then they are envoked again when needed.

* I will make an image of my pi's sd and you can just write that to your
flash card and just get it done.  I am teaching this evenning so I might
not be able to get to it until tomorrow if that's OK.  It will be located
in the shared folder and 
publically avalaible.

Best of luck :)
Cheers,
c

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