crontab -e fails to start

Question

whenever I try to run

crontab -e

I'm getting errors such as:

no crontab for banana - using an empty one
/tmp/crontab.oeFm1e: Invalid argument

Is there any way to edit / install the file?

Answer 1

I'm curious as to what the error is about... I wonder what's being found invalid.

Anyways... You simply say "unix"... so I'm kinda guessing here.. but they're generally the same when it comes to crontab user files...

The user crontab file(s) are usually kept in /var/spool/cron/crontabs.

You'll need to be root to tamper with things in there though, and it's best not done by hand... Grues live there.

Check your log messages to see if anything more were logged concerning the "invalid argument" problem.

You might also try editing banana's crontab as root...

sudo crontab -u banana -e

You might have better luck.

(I love that word... Bananananananana (I never know when to stop!) )

Answer 2

It looks like you do not have an active cron file for that user.

To list a user crontab, if one exists:

crontab -l

Create a plain text file with the cron commands, then install it using:

crontab file.txt

To find out if there is a root crontab this will list it:

sudo crontab -l

If the root crontab exits then to edit it:

sudo crontab -e

If it does not exist, then create a plain text file and install:

sudo crontab file.txt