do shell script "curl etc" not working properly.

I wish these forums had a better "code" box. Sometimes all this copying-and-pasting can create annoying little errors.

The line right before the error highlighted in red: the space between "-o $outputfile" and the URL is missing.

For testing, you should put it all in a file, and run it using "sh /pathto/that_file". All I did was change the paths, and we already know the script works in principle. Ergo, if it fails now, it's almost certainly due to a typo (missing space etc), or my using a wrong path – which I'm 99.9% sure I didn't do. So if you put it all in a file, and it works when the script is executed as a file, then we know that it should work as well via cron.

I am nearly certain that the only thing which has prevented us from closing this thread is an incomplete $PATH variable in the environment in which cron runs the script, and that using absolute paths in every instance (crontab level and script level) will resolve the issue.

(Hey, does your working script have the "#!/bin/sh" statement at the beginning? I noticed it's not in what we copied-and-pasted. It's probably not necessary, but it wouldn't hurt to include it any and every time shell commands are put in a text file – i.e. a script.)

To elaborate: at this point, we're not really testing that the sequence of commands works; we basically know that it does.

All we're testing at this point is that the structure of the commands is syntactically correct (which in the previous instance it wasn't: the missing space).

At this point:

Step 1: Put the script, with my most recent modifications (the absolute paths), in a file, and make sure that it works completely when executed using "sh /pathto/that_file"

Step 2: Automate that script via cron using

* * * * * /bin/sh /pathto/that_file

I really think that's all it will take to end this thread.

Well, it was worth a try.

(One last time, to be certain: you are not using "open" or "/usr/bin/open" anywhere, correct?)

Very odd. Very annoying.

If you wouldn't mind, there's one more thing I want to check:

Type "mail" in the command line. Do you see a whole bunch of messages?

If so, open one up: just type its number, followed by return. Pick the largest number for the latest message. Pick one that has "Cron" in the subject line, if they all don't.

Post it here (go ahead and leave out everything up to the Subject line, i.e. the personal info).

Thanks.