Scripts Failing When Run via crontab -e

When scripts work perfectly when run manually but fail mysteriously when executed via cron.

root cause

This happens because of the minimal environment that cron has - it runs with very limited PATH, environment variables, and shell context compared to your interactive shell.

solution

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20582224/shell-script-not-running-via-crontab-but-runs-fine-manually

The fix: Manually add it to /etc/crontab with the full path specification:

*/10 *     * * *   ghost  /bin/bash /home/scripts/run.sh

This approach:

• Uses absolute paths for both the shell (/bin/bash) and script (/home/scripts/run.sh)
• Specifies the user (ghost) explicitly in the system crontab
• Avoids user-specific cron environment issues

Additional troubleshooting:

• Source necessary profile files if needed
• Test scripts with env -i to simulate the minimal cron environment