sunwait not waiting for sun

[ckovel]

Disclosure: I am noob.
I have been working on a perl program to take pictures during daylight. I came across sunwait in this post : http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt ... it#p568935
and a few other places on the forum.
The issue is not with the python program. it runs and takes pictures. The problem is that sunwait is not working as expected in cron.
I've tried (with and without the 'root' & and path):
* 3 * * * root /usr/local/bin/sunwait sun up -0:00:01 40.8244N 74.2124W; python /home/pi/Documents/python/TLTrial-Dylght.py
* 4 * * * root /usr/local/bin/sunwait sun down +0:00:01 40.8244N 74.2124W; killall python
+> intention of first line start the sunwait job to start taking pictures when the sun comes up.
+> intention of second line shut down all python jobs when the sun goes down.
++> however, pictures get taken from the moment the cron job kicks off

i've tried:
3 * * * * sunwait sun up -0:00:01 40.8244N 74.2124W; python /home/pi/Documents/python/TLTrial-Dylght.py
15 * * * * sunwait sun down +0:00:01 40.8244N 74.2124W; killall python
++> same situation the jobs kick in at 3 am and stop at 3 pm.

a. is there any way to test the sunwait program ?
b. am i calling the jobs wrong?
any help is appreciated.

[pluggy]

To test sunwait

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sunwait -p 53.9142N 2.1893W

Which should return

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Using location:             53.914200N, 2.189300W
Date:                        8 Sep 2014 
Local time:                 16:17 
Day length:                 13:12 hours
With civil twilight         14:21 hours
With nautical twilight      15:49 hours
With astronomical twilight  17:25 hours
Length of twilight:  civil   0:34 hours
                  nautical   1:18 hours
              astronomical   2:06 hours
Current specified time zone: BST (1 from UTC) 
Sun transits meridian 1306 BST
                   Sun rises 0631 BST, sets 1940 BST
       Civil twilight starts 0555 BST, ends 2016 BST
    Nautical twilight starts 0511 BST, ends 2100 BST
Astronomical twilight starts 0423 BST, ends 2149 BST

Obviously make allowances for when you run it.

Crontab can be difficult and confusing. There are effectively 2 types, system-wide and user, the system wide needs the user putting in, the user crontab doesn't. The way I do it is to directly edit the /etc/crontab file using nano or something (yout need to be root or use sudo) and forget all about the user crontabs scattered around.

Here you go, my /etc/crontab

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# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
# command to install the new version when you edit this file
# and files in /etc/cron.d. These files also have username fields,
# that none of the other crontabs do.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# m h dom mon dow user	command

#15 19 * * * root /sbin/shutdown -h now
17 *	* * *	root    cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6	* * *	root	test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily )
47 6	* * 7	root	test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly )
52 6	1 * *	root	test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly )
0 0 * * * root /etc/scripts/midnite >/dev/null 2>&1
* * * * * root /etc/scripts/minute >/dev/null 2>&1
*/10 * * * * root /etc/scripts/10min >/dev/null 2>&1
2 */8 * * * root /etc/scripts/8hour >/dev/null 2>&1
#2 1,9,17 * * * root /etc/scripts/8hour >/dev/null 2>&1
#50 2 * * 0 root reboot # 
7 */8 * * * root /etc/scripts/ipcheck >/dev/null 2>&1
3 3 * * * root sunwait sun up +0:30:00 53.9142N 2.1893W ; echo 'light' > /root/lightordark 
4 3 * * * root sunwait -p 53.9142N 2.1893W > /root/suntimes
3 14 * * * root sunwait sun down -0:20:00 53.9142N 2.1893W ; echo 'dark' > /root/lightordark
58 23 * * * root /etc/scripts/monthmeter >/dev/null 2>&1
#

I use sunwait to simply write 'light' or 'dark' into a file which is then interrogated by other scripts.

I had to compile sunwait for the Pi myself, which is a bit daunting for noobs, precompiled exceutables for generic linux are likely to be x86 processor (PC) which definitely won't work on a Pi, where did you get the executable from ?

[DougieLawson]

3 * * * * sunwait sun up -0:00:01 40.8244N 74.2124W; python /home/pi/Documents/python/TLTrial-Dylght.py

You've not got enough wait time.

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3 3 * * * /usr/local/bin/sunwait civ up +0:01:00 51.2xx0197N 1.1xx3011W ; echo 'light' > /var/run/lightordark
3 14 * * * /usr/local/bin/sunwait civ down -0:01:00 51.2xx0197N 1.1xx3011W ; echo 'dark' > /var/run/lightordark

my system (where I've coded it for civil twighlight) has an hour leeway starts waiting at 03:03 local for sunrise and starts waiting at 14:03 for local for sunset.

The file I write from root's crontab, /var/run/lightordark has rw-r--r-- permissions so any program can read it.

[pluggy]

Dougies crontab wasn't really inspired by my own.....

Where you're putting the lightordark file probably makes more sense than where I'm putting it.

[ckovel]

Thanks to both. My first discovery from the "sunwait -p" command was my permissions weren't there . It was not allowed to run as an executable so I ran "sudo chmod +x sunwait". I can now run the program from the cmd line. (sunwait -p is hugely useful.) I expect I will be ok tomorrow morning.

I'll also just run for civ twilight which is all i am looking for.

[Nestboxtech]

3 * * * * sunwait sun up -0:00:01 40.8244N 74.2124W; python /home/pi/Documents/python/TLTrial-Dylght.py

You've not got enough wait time.

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3 3 * * * /usr/local/bin/sunwait civ up +0:01:00 51.2xx0197N 1.1xx3011W ; echo 'light' > /var/run/lightordark
3 14 * * * /usr/local/bin/sunwait civ down -0:01:00 51.2xx0197N 1.1xx3011W ; echo 'dark' > /var/run/lightordark

my system (where I've coded it for civil twighlight) has an hour leeway starts waiting at 03:03 local for sunrise and starts waiting at 14:03 for local for sunset.

The file I write from root's crontab, /var/run/lightordark has rw-r--r-- permissions so any program can read it.

Could you post a quick example of how you read the file content into a python variable, then 'do something' based on that...
I've got as far as this, (the incrementing 'fileserial' is where I will put a call to picamera). I want it to check for "light" vs "dark" within the loop, not outside as it currently does...

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#file created by sunwait to indicate if its light or dark
lightordarkfile="/pathto/lightordark_test"

def lightordark(): # read the txt file created by sunwait to see if its light or dark
	f = open(lightordarkfile)
	lightordark_status=f.readline()

# Set the initial serial for saved images to 1
fileSerial = 1

while True:
	if 'light' in lightordark_status:
		# Set FileSerialNumber to 000X using four digits
		fileSerialNumber = "%04d" % (fileSerial)
		s_fileSerialNumber=str(fileSerialNumber)

		# Increment the fileSerial
		fileSerial += 1

		time.sleep(1)

	else:
		print " ....do nothing"

[Nestboxtech]

Figured it out:

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while True:
	time.sleep(2)
	
	#re populate lightordark_status
	f = open(lightordarkfile)
	lightordark_status=f.readline()
	
	if 'light' in lightordark_status:
		# Set FileSerialNumber to 000X using four digits
		fileSerialNumber = "%04d" % (fileSerial)
		s_fileSerialNumber=str(fileSerialNumber)
		print 'fileSerial = '+fileSerialNumber+' (light)'	

		# Increment the fileSerial
		fileSerial += 1
		
		takePic_Picamera()

	else:
		print 'lightordark_status = '+lightordark_status+ ' dont do anything...'