Resolved Maintenance Cron

Hello Eddie,

The Help button at the top-right is not functioning so I do not know if the answer is contained there.

The help button is to display the content the selected operation is going to perform. On Maintenance page, If you select VirtueMart in first drop down and in second drop down select Empty database and click on Help button. Does it work then?

Arguments for maintenance

--task="maintenance"

--addon = "virtuemart" ??

--operation = ""

I wish to set a cron job to backup the database.

What is the operation name?

--task="maintenance", --addon="virtuemart" and --operation="backupvm" is the operation for Backup the database. I understand this part is missing in the document and so will update it.

Thanks, Tharuna
Best
Eddie

Hello

If I run as cron or from command line, it fails:

404 No input file specified.

If I run from with the component, a file is output to:

/tmp/csvi

e.g. /tmp/csvi/virtuemart_1543228014.sql.zip

So, how do I specify the file location + name in the command line?

Best

Eddie

Hello Eddie,

If I run as cron or from command line, it fails:

404 No input file specified.

Can you post your complete cron command to check?

If I run from with the component, a file is output to:

/tmp/csvi

e.g. /tmp/csvi/virtuemart_1543228014.sql.zip

So, how do I specify the file location + name in the command line?

There is no such option to set file location or file name. The default location is /tmp/csvi and the file name has the virtuemart_ string with timestamp at which backup was taken.

Hi

So the task cannot be run from the command line or cron?

If it can, what is the correct command?

Best

Eddie

Hello Eddie,

There should be no request for the input file, the command you are using is fine. The only place where CSVI generates an error of this kind is in the analyzer. It sounds almost like there is something else in your system interfering with the maintenance job.

We also do not generate notices that start with an error number and then the description. This looks more like an error page as well.

Here is the command I am using

php cron.php --task="maintenance" --addon="virtuemart" --operation="backupvm"

This is running it from the folder that contains the cron.php file.

Hello Roland

Ok, so I just tried to run the command from cron:

/usr/bin/php "/home/xyz/public_html/administrator/components/com_csvi/helpers/cron.php" --task="maintenance" --addon="virtuemart" --operation="backupvm"

The email received for the cron job said:
=============================
Status: 404 Not Found
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.6.38
Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

No input file specified.
=============================

Same result when running directly from a prompt.

Hopefully,you will tell me what I have done wrong?

Best

Eddie

Hello Eddie,

That gives more context. It is actually PHP telling you it cannot find the file. There is an -f flag in PHP, so perhaps the following may work:

/usr/bin/php -f "/home/xyz/public_html/administrator/components/com_csvi/helpers/cron.php" --task="maintenance" --addon="virtuemart" --operation="backupvm"

Hello Roland

-f requires an argument <file>

i.e.

-f <file>

Best

Eddie

Hello Eddie,

That is why I said it may work. Something is up with your environment, perhaps you can check with your hosting provider why PHP can't find the file. Assuming you supplied the correct path.

At the same time it can be good if you can use PHP 7 for the command-line. Just to be up-to-date.

Hello Eddie,

That is why I said it may work. Something is up with your environment, perhaps you can check with your hosting provider why PHP can't find the file. Assuming you supplied the correct path.

Ok. Yes, the path is correct, except the actual directory replaces the 'xyz'.

At the same time it can be good if you can use PHP 7 for the command-line. Just to be up-to-date.

I am in the process of updating some scripts written with mysql queries to mysqli.

Best

Eddie

Hello Eddie,

Assuming you supplied the correct path.

.

Which prompted me to spot my 'deliberate mistake'.

I have been using an historic path to cron.php.

Some time ago, the directory: "helpers" became "helper"

/usr/bin/php "/home/xyz/public_html/administrator/components/com_csvi/helpers/cron.php" --task="maintenance" --addon="virtuemart" --operation="backupvm"

should be:

/usr/bin/php "/home/xyz/public_html/administrator/components/com_csvi/helper/cron.php" --task="maintenance" --addon="virtuemart" --operation="backupvm"

and it works, of course.

Thank You

Eddie