On Wednesday, July 5, 2017 at 11:23:22 AM UTC-6, 6502en...@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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