# Rails, rake and crontab **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 13, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-rake-and-crontab/191505 "2010-07-13T16:50:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![addame](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@addame](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/addame)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-rake-and-crontab/191505/1 "2010-07-13T16:50:04Z")
I have a rails rake task which runs just fine. I want this task to be run periodically by crontab so I added it to crontab as follows : 0,30,0 - - - - cd /var/www/html/myapp && RAILS\_ENV=production /usr/local/bin/rake myraketask --trace \>\> /var/www/html/myapp/log/cron\_log.log 2\>&1 In cron\_log.log I’m seeing the following error: rake aborted! invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:98:in `parse_gem_version' /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:80:in`gem\_version’ /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:59:in `load_rails_gem' /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:54:in`load\_initializer’ /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:38:in `run' /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:11:in`boot!’ /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:110:in `' /var/www/html/metajorn/Rakefile:4:in`require’ /var/www/html/metajorn/Rakefile:4:in `' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2383:in`load’ /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2383:in `raw_load_rakefile' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2017:in`block in load\_rakefile’ /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in `standard_exception_handling' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2016:in`load\_rakefile’ /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2000:in `block in run' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in`standard\_exception\_handling’ /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1998:in `run' /usr/local/bin/rake:31:in`’ It is noteworthy that the task is working fine if I run it manually. Thanks, M ---
**Author:** ![addame](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@addame](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/addame)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-rake-and-crontab/191505/2 "2010-07-13T17:04:47Z")
On 13 July 2010 15:50, med addame [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I have a rails rake task which runs just fine. I want this task to be > run periodically by crontab so I added it to crontab as follows : 0,30,0 > > - > - > - > - cd /var/www/html/myapp && RAILS\_ENV=production > /usr/local/bin/rake myraketask --trace \>\> > /var/www/html/myapp/log/cron\_log.log 2\>&1 If you type exactly that command (from the cd obviously) into a terminal, does it work? Do you have permission to write into the log directory? Though can’t see why that would give that error. > In cron\_log.log I’m seeing the following error: > > rake aborted! > invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII > /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:98:in `parse\_gem\_version’ Are you sure this is as a result of the command above? It seems to be in the wrong directory. What is in line 98 of boot.rb? Colin ---
**Author:** ![addame](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@addame](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/addame)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-rake-and-crontab/191505/3 "2010-07-13T17:12:08Z")
the crontab entry was : - - - - cd /var/www/html/metajorn && RAILS\_ENV=production /usr/local/bin/rake myraketask --trace \>\> /var/www/html/metajorn/log/cron\_log.log 2\>&1 I changed the name to myapp just in the post … but omitted to change it in the error trace. So, yes when run manually it works just fine and file permissions are set to 777. I think it is related to some environment information that are not loaded by cron … but I haven’t find yet what is exactly missing. Colin L. wrote: > On 13 July 2010 15:50, med addame [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > I have a rails rake task which runs just fine. I want this task to be > > run periodically by crontab so I added it to crontab as follows : 0,30,0 > > > > - > > - > > - > > - cd /var/www/html/myapp && RAILS\_ENV=production > > /usr/local/bin/rake myraketask --trace \>\> > > /var/www/html/myapp/log/cron\_log.log 2\>&1 > > If you type exactly that command (from the cd obviously) into a > terminal, does it work? Do you have permission to write into the log > directory? Though can’t see why that would give that error. > > > In cron\_log.log I’m seeing the following error: > > > > rake aborted! > > invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII > > /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:98:in `parse\_gem\_version’ > > Are you sure this is as a result of the command above? It seems to be > in the wrong directory. > > What is in line 98 of boot.rb? > > Colin ---
**Author:** ![addame](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@addame](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/addame)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-rake-and-crontab/191505/4 "2010-07-13T17:29:51Z")
I finally solved the problem: cron uses environment variables that may be different from the user environment variables… it was the case for me. my crond service uses us-ascii encoding while my rake task uses utf-8. To fix the issue, I just had to change the encoding of crond by adding the following lines to my crond file (in my centos5 it is locaed in: /var/spool/cron/root ) SHELL=/bin/bash LANG=en\_US.UTF-8 LANGUAGE=en LC\_CTYPE=en\_US.UTF-8 LC\_NUMERIC=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_TIME=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_COLLATE=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_MONETARY=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_MESSAGES=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_PAPER=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_NAME=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_ADDRESS=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_TELEPHONE=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_MEASUREMENT=“en\_US.UTF-8” LC\_IDENTIFICATION=“en\_US.UTF-8” Than, restarted crond : service crond restart M. med addame wrote: > I have a rails rake task which runs just fine. I want this task to be > run periodically by crontab so I added it to crontab as follows : 0,30,0 > > - > - > - > - cd /var/www/html/myapp && RAILS\_ENV=production > /usr/local/bin/rake myraketask --trace \>\> > /var/www/html/myapp/log/cron\_log.log 2\>&1 > > In cron\_log.log I’m seeing the following error: > > rake aborted! > invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII > /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:98:in `parse_gem_version' /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:80:in`gem\_version’ > /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:59:in `load_rails_gem' /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:54:in`load\_initializer’ > /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:38:in `run' /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:11:in`boot!’ > /var/www/html/metajorn/config/boot.rb:110:in `' /var/www/html/metajorn/Rakefile:4:in`require’ > /var/www/html/metajorn/Rakefile:4:in `' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2383:in`load’ > /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2383:in > `raw_load_rakefile' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2017:in`block in load\_rakefile’ > /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in > `standard_exception_handling' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2016:in`load\_rakefile’ > /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2000:in > `block in run' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in`standard\_exception\_handling’ > /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1998:in `run' /usr/local/bin/rake:31:in`’ > It is noteworthy that the task is working fine if I run it manually. > > Thanks, > > M