Tjyylli

I apologise if this has been asked before but I am not sure how to question a search query for this.
I am extremely new to linux and I have been learning as I go to solve issues.

I am trying to set up working cron jobs to restart a game server I am running.

Currently my crontab looks like this

#backup world as instructed by https://github.com/g1franc/SEDS-Setup

0 0 * * * /home/root/spaceengineers/start.sh backupworld

#close server

1 0 * * * /usr/bin/screen -S spaceengineers -X stuff "^C"

#close screen

2 0 * * * /usr/bin/screen -S spaceengineers -X stuff "^M"

#recreate server

3 0 * * * /home/root/spaceengineers/start.sh

Now on the backup world I get in my syslog file located at /var/log i get

May 24 00:00:01 SpaceEngineers CRON[1958]: (root) CMD (/home/root/spaceengineers/start.sh backupworld)

May 24 00:00:01 SpaceEngineers CRON[1957]: (CRON) info (No MTA installed, discarding output)

and that is also the same with the recreate server

May 24 00:03:01 SpaceEngineers CRON[2269]: (root) CMD (/home/root/spaceengineers/start.sh /usr/bin/screen -x spaceengineers)

May 24 00:03:01 SpaceEngineers CRON[2268]: (CRON) info (No MTA installed, discarding output)

The other commands work perfectly fine.

now before anyone questions why I have structured my code the way I have, its because the tutorial i was following says to start the server via ~/spaceengineers/start.sh -x spaceengineers
and from what I have read i need to do /usr/bin/screen to access any screen commands in Cron

What am I doing wrong and what do I need to do to rectify my issues.

EDITED: Changed the crontab to match current contents on my server, issues remain the same

Pastebin of start.sh

http://pastebin.com/9QcWyqYF

Can you check the GNU screen syntax for this line:

3 0 * * * /home/root/spaceengineers/start.sh /usr/bin/screen -x spaceengineers

I would've expected something like:

3 0 * * * /usr/bin/screen -S spaceengineers -X stuff 'command with newline' 

However, using the -X means screen expects screen commands and not a script to run.

Therefore you need to use the screen stuff command as per this SU question

screen -S sessionname -X stuff 'command'`echo -ne '15'`

Update

Try /bin/bash or wherever the Shell you use is located.

 3 0 * * * /bin/bash /home/root/spaceengineers/start.sh

Maybe add contents of start.sh to help debug.

You can find shell with the which command. Might have to sudo or be root to find out.

This command worked for me, though because one or more of the commands in my script required sudo, I had to set this up under the root user's cron :

17 2 29 1 * /usr/bin/screen -dmS $MYSESSIONNAME /bin/bash $FULLPATHTOMYSHELLSCRIPT $SHELLSCRIPTARG1 $SHELLSCRIPTARG2 ...

The key to getting screen working (and not just closing immediately when invoked by cron) is the -d argument, but the m probably helps too in some way/cases.

Below is the relevant snippet from the screen --help output

"-dmS name Start as daemon: Screen session in detached mode."

@daily /usr/bin/screen -dms aquaticscenery /ig.py && python ig.py