Linux and Python scripts, help needed

[Ron Stephens]

I am back from a trip, I have manually updated the mygale generated
Pythonic web articels page on my web site. There are quite a few new
links of interest.

However, the automated updating from my Linux box still did not work
while I was gone. I will manually update once per day but I would sure
like to get the automaton working.

I am embarrassed to come back once more to ask for help on this subject.
I have used crontab to set up 
a my_cron_file that runs five Python scripts to automatically run
mygale.py and associated programs to 
update the output.html file listing new web articles about Python once
per day.

My crontab file reads as suchas checked using crontab -l:

30 4 * * * /usr/bin/python /home/ron/mygale.py get all
30 5 * * * /usr/bin/python /home/ron/urls.py
30 6 * * * /usr/bin/python /home/ron/urldb.py
00 7 * * * /usr/bin/python /home/ron/mygale.py -n 200 display all
30 7 * * * /usr/bin/python /home/ron/mygale-uploader.py

crond is running , as checked using
  /etc/rc.d/init.d/crond  status which shows a running cron process with
a pid number.

Also,  ps aux | grep cron shows a /usr/sbin/cron process.

Finally, the  cron daemons log check /var/log/cron shows all 5 Python
scripts properly called at their 
appointed times each morning. No errors are at all are recorded in the
cron error log files.

Now, when I run these scripts exactly as typed above, from the Bash
shell,
everything works as planned and that's how I have been updating the
online HTML page that shows the Pythonic articles on my web site.

The mystery is that, even though the log files show the Python scripts
called each day, no update occurs 
on my web site . Indeed, when I check the output.html file in my
/home/ron directory, it is not updated 
at all by these cron processes. Even though the log file shows the
scripts as being ran, it is as if they did not run at all, in that no
output occurs.

Yet when I run the same scripts manually, all is updated.

So this morning at 4:30 AM I sat up and ran a "top" process from the
Bash shell, that shows all 
running processes. Sure enough, at exactly 4:30 AM, a new Python process
was spawned. The new 
Python process was matched with a new entry in the cron log file of the
mygale.py program being 
called.

I watched carefully, and the mygale.py process lasted for about 30
seconds and then disappeared from 
the "top" screen. I assume it terminated normally. Except that when I
run the mygale.py get all script 
manually  in the BASH shell, it takes about two minutes to complete.
This is the only sign of any 
problem, but still no error messages are generated anywhere I can find.

Well, it seems to me that a series of processes on Linux or any
operating system should be 
deterministic. That is, things should make sense, when the exact same
steps are taken, the result should 
always be the same.

This procedure I am trying to do does not seem to make sense to me, it
seems mysterious. Linux should 
not be mysterious.

Can anyone help me?

By the way, shouldn't it be possible to cut and paste from the BASH
shell to a text editor? It would save 
me a lot of typing ;-))))

The clipboard in general is a frustration; I can't yet make it work
properly in many situations. Is it me 
or does the KDE clipboard lack a lot of functionality compared to
Windows clipboard? I can't even 
copy and paste from K-EDIT, nor K-WORD, to Netscape Composer. Oh, well.

One last frustration: Linux does hang, at least to the point that this
newbie can't recover from it. My 
box hung when I tried to open a web presentation by Guido van Rossum
about Python Conference 10 
using K Presenter.  I could not even open a console nor close the
offending KDE shell to get back to a 
command line. The box also hangs when I try to print using cups on my HP
T45 printer. (I wish I could 
use my printer.) My downloaded Open Office also hangs my computer just
by trying to open it.

Nonetheless, these hang-ups and crashes are not of pivotal importance ot
me. But mysterious behavior 
that not does not allow me to run daily scripts to update my web site
does bother me. Computers 
should not be mysterious. They should be deterministic. Do A, then B,
then C, get X for output.

Help ;-))))