Run gpio script from startup to listen for button press and then execute command and bash script

Question

I have this python script that is intended to run from startup and listen for a buttonpress. If there is a buttonpress (held for 2s) the gpio script should run two bash scripts. The python script runs if it is done with python /path/to/script/script.py so I know it is working. If I try to run in from startup by a crontab -e @reboot /path/to/script/script.py I can see that it is active when running the top command. However, the button press will not fire the intended bash scripts. I have tried and modify ~/.bashrc and tried to have a bash script in crontab -e with sudo python /path/to/script.py. None of them worked. To complicate things further, If I change it to call a command instead, like killall -9 openvpn for example... then it works.. what am I doing wrong?

The python script looks like the following

from gpiozero import Button
from signal import pause
import os
def runboth():
     os.system("/opt/script/script_a.sh")

     os.system("/opt/script/script_b.sh")


runboth_btn = Button(23, hold_time=2)
runboth_btn.when_held = runboth


pause()

`

Below is one bash script I try to run with the button press. Its located in ~/opt/script# and has the permissions -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 240 Mar 21 11:58 match_email.sh

#!/bin/bash
#run match
python /opt/tmp_email/email_match.py

wait
mv /opt/tmp_email/output.csv /opt/emailoutput$(date -d "today"+"%Y%m%d%H%M").csv

If I try to run it with a subprocess.call looking like

from gpiozero import Button
from signal import pause
import subprocess
def runboth():
    subprocess.call(['sh', '/opt/script/script_a.sh'], shell=False)

    subprocess.call(['sh', '/opt/script/script_b.sh'], shell=False)

runboth_btn = Button(17, hold_time=2)
runboth_btn.when_held = runboth


pause()

But didn´t work either..

Crontab looks like

@reboot /opt/script/run_both.py

I have had a look at Run a shell script from a python script when a button is pressed but that didn´t help me.. Any help is much appreciated!

Answer 1

I can see a few things that might have gone wrong.

1. You are defining the location of the scripts with the "~/" notation, which only works if the same user that is running the python script is storing the scripts. I'd put the scripts in something like /opt/project_name/script_a.sh

2. The scripts might not be executable by the user that is running the python script.

3. You might not have the #!/bin/bash at the top of the shell scripts.

Answer 2

The answer is here. As mentioned in this post, systemd is the most reliable. I had to laborate with what user I ran it with but otherwise quite straightforward. https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=200174