Crontab or cron.d to run a wav file. What am I doing wrong?

Question

I have been at this for a month now. New to programming. Trying to run a schedule for wav files to execute. Using Raspberry Pi 3 and Raspbian Stretch. My cron.d file called 'BellCron' is as follows:

/5 * * * * pi /home/pi/CronJobs/BellsCron.sh

Applied chmod +x to the BellsCron.sh file.

It is a file that executes a second file, 'playAngelus.py'. When I execute 'BellsCron.sh' at the command line it works fine.

The 'BellsCron.sh file looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python

sudo -u pi python /home/pi/CronJobs/playAngelus.py

The 'playAngelus.py' file looks like this:

#!/user/bin/env python

import pygame

import time

pygame.init()

pygame.mixer.music.load("/home/pi/Music/Angelus.wav")

pygame.mixer.music.play()

time.sleep(10)

I have also run a text file from the same cron.d file that is giving me the time in a file every 2 minutes, so I know it is running cron. But, the sound file will not work using cron. I accept that the error is mine. I have tried every configuration I can find on the web. I would be most appreciative if someone would help me to write the script I need to execute a wav file in my home directory, /home/pi/Music/Angelus.wav, using cron.d or crontab.

Answer 1

In

sudo -u pi python /home/pi/CronJobs/playAngelus.py

I think 'python' should be replaced with full path of python executable, something like: /usr/bin/python

So your code should look something like: sudo -u pi /usr/bin/python /home/pi/CronJobs/playAngelus.py

Hope this solves your problem.

Answer 2

Why not simply play the wav file directly from the cron job ?

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/aplay /home/pi/Music/Angelus.wav

Answer 3

If you're running a graphical login, audio depends on X display access. cron jobs don't have the right environment variables set. I had a setup that produced an hourly chime, and this is what worked.

Install play, the sox audio player:

sudo apt install sox libsox-fmt-all

Edit your crontab the recommended way:

crontab -e

Add this line, save and exit:

*/5 * * * * export DISPLAY=:0 && /usr/bin/play -q /home/pi/Music/Angelus.wav

Answer 4

You can try to define XDG. For example:

* * * * * XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u) /path/to/script

Sound started working for me. Do not forget to edit job timing so it does not run every minute.

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