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user80666
Asked: 2011-06-15 22:07:00 +0800 CST

Need with crontab and gui python popup

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I have following python script, and want to run it with cron so that every minute cron will popup a message. 

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import gtk.gdk
import pynotify
import random

m=[]
m.append("test1")
m.append("test2")
m.append("test3")

n = pynotify.Notification(random.choice(m))
n.set_hint('x', gtk.gdk.screen_width()/2.)
n.set_hint('y', gtk.gdk.screen_height()/2.)
n.show()

This is my cron script:

* * * * * export DISPLAY=:0.0 && /home/user/scripts/notifications.py >/dev/null 2>&1

Unfortunately nothing happens. Can you help please?

cron python

2 Answers

  1. In case anyone else is wondering. I had to export DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY

    I'm running this script in cron:

    export XAUTHORITY=/home/user/.Xauthority
export DISPLAY=:0
python ~/notifications.py
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  2. From this thread at Ubuntuforums, you're possibly running into xauth problems. X tends to be paranoid about giving display/input access to outside processes, even from the same user.

    In an X terminal window, type: xhost local:$USER and see if your cron job works. If so, add that command to your ~/.bashrc file and the fix should persist.

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