Crontab not executing scripts

Question

Here is my code:

#!/usr/bin/python3

import pyautogui
import random

screen_width, screen_height = pyautogui.size()

x = random.randint(0, screen_width)
y = random.randint(0, screen_height)

pyautogui.moveTo(x, y)

print("Success!")

Here is the crontab entry:

• • • • • /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11/bin/python3 /Users/tylerkivelson/Desktop/python/mouse_move_test.py

I did the ./mouse_move_test.py command in the terminal after using the chmod +x mouse_move_test.py and got:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./mouse_move_test.py", line 3, in <module>
    import pyautogui
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pyautogui'

and I think this might be the reason why the crontab won't run the script? I am very lost

Answer 1

I'm going to guess that this is a Python version mismatch issue.

When you run your python script with this command:

./mouse_move_test.py

Your shell opens that file and finds this line at the top:

#!/usr/bin/python3

So the shell is going to use that python executable to run your code.

However, you installed the pyautogui module for the specific version of python installed at /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11.

So, it's very likely the case that /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11 and /usr/bin/python3 are different versions of python.

To fix this, remove the #!/usr/bin/python3 line from the top of your python code.

To test your script, you can use the same command that is in the crontab entry:

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11/bin/python3 /Users/tylerkivelson/Desktop/python/mouse_move_test.py