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BowPark
Asked: 2023-08-18 16:44:22 +0800 CST

Unable to run notify-send from cronjob

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In my Kubuntu 22.04, a script run by my crontab uses notify-send. However, it doesn't work: there is no pop-up appearing. If I redirect the output (stderr in particular) of the script to a file, this error is printed:

Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.Notifications: Timeout was reached

If instead I run notify-send directly from a cronjob,

0 * * * * env DISPLAY=:0.0 notify-send --expire-time=0 --app-name="Test" 'Test text' 1>/tmp/out1 2>/tmp/out2

out1 and out2 are empty; however, this doesn't work as before. The pop-up does not appear.

Is there a way to make notify-send work as expected?

scripts

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I guess for notify-send to work in a cron job you have to copy the environment variable DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS from your current desktop session and set it in the cron job. Also, notify-send must run as the same user who is currently logged in to the desktop session.

    At least that works for me.

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