Having trouble with Windows Task Scheduler, and didn't find a solution browsing through other questions. We've got several Python Scripts running via Task Scheduler that are all running just fine, but there's one in particular that just won't run.
The "Run whether use is logged in or not" box is checked, as well as the "Run with highest privileges" box, as it is with the ones that are working.
In the Start Program box I have "C:\Program Files\Python310\python.exe" and in the Add Arguments box I have C:\Users\<user>\<dir1>\<dir2>\script.py.
Using cmd, the following runs the program and generates the file I want perfectly, which is just the exact same things as above.
"C:\Program Files\Python310\python.exe" C:\Users\<user>\<dir1>\<dir2>\script.py
I've tried changing the location of the python interpreter, using a different interpreter version, using task scheduler to run CMD first with the above as arguments, and nothing seems to do it.
On every attempt, I get the following:
Task Started (1)
Action started (1)
Action completed (2)
Task completed (2)
And every time this happens, the script hasn't actually run. I even copy/pasted my the bits in task scheduler into CMD to make sure I didn't overlook a typo or something like that.
Thanks in advance!
I have a GUI based.exe, which I made using Python auto-py-to-exe (one folder method), and I want the application to run up after every 10 minutes or so.
It is working when I click on it manually.
I have tried using task scheduler in windows to do that, but it is not exactly executing the application as I cannot see anything on screen. Any ideas how to do it?
Not answering directly the question but maybe still solving your problems. To run python scripts on schedule i usually write a .bat script that gets executed by task scheduler.
The bat script has to have the full length python path for the invocation and the full path of the .py file.
I think it's possible to use the same strategy to run exe files, so you could try using a .bat that targets your exe instead of targetting the exe directly in the task scheduler.
I'm working on using Task Scheduler to run this program every morning. The python program works fine when I run it manually, but throws a FileNotFoundError when done with Task Scheduler. Here is a snippet of the code:
original = "C:/Users/work/thing/thing.xlsx"
target = "C:/Users/{}/place of work/work Team -
Documents/General/thing".format(user)
if os.path.isfile(os.path.join(target, "thing.xlsx")):
os.remove(os.path.join(target, "thing.xlsx"))
shutil.move(original, target)
print("Program executed without errors.")
Fixed by converting the python script into an executable file (via pyinstaller) and then making the exe program the action from Task Scheduler. Some ticked properties include -"grant highest permissions" I also removed the need for shutil.move() by just creating and writing to a file in the cloud location.
I created a Python script that collects data from a website and generates an Excel file based on a table in that website. I used pyinstaller with -w -F parameters to generate a .exe file.
I ran this file a few times and it worked perfect so I decided to use Task Scheduler to run it every hour. Two days after the task worked every hour, while I was using the computer the Task Scheduler returned this error when it tried to run the .exe: 0xFFFFFFFF and a pop-up saying: Failed to "something"
Given the fact that I needed data every hour, I ran the file manually and again... it worked!
Is there any way I can fix this? How can I make sure that it won't fail again when I leave my computer online for 1 week but I'm not there to manually start it in case it fails...
Here are the settings for the Task Scheduler:
Actions:
Program/script: C:\path1\path2\path3\Script_G1.exe
/ Start in (optional): C:\path1\path2\path3\
Settings:
Allow task to be run on demand
We had a similar problem where we'd get a 0xFFFFFFFF error when running our custom .exe from Task Scheduler, but it would work fine outside of Task Scheduler.
The workaround was to create a .bat file to run the .exe and make the scheduled task call the .bat file. Not a solution, obviously, but works in a pinch.
We had a similar problem. The program accessed shared disk F:\SomeFolder\File.log and copied a file from it to the local folder. I had to change the shared disk path name in the program to use full server path.
From
F:\SomeFolder\File.log
to
\\serverName\\docs\\SomeFolder\File.log
and then it worked.
In the "Action" check the "Start in (optional)" field. It makes a difference in these situations.
Not sure if anyone has run into this, but I'll take suggestions for troubleshooting and/or alternative methods.
I have a Windows 2008 server on which I am running several scheduled tasks. One of those tasks is a python script that uses pscp to log into a linux box, checks for new files and if there is anything new, copies them down to a local directory on the C: drive. I've put some logging into the script at key points as well and I'm using logging.basicConfig(level=DEBUG).
I built the command using a variable, command = 'pscp -pw xxxx name#ip:/ c:\local_dir' and then I use subprocess.call(command) to execute the command.
Now here's the weird part. If I run the script manually from the command line, it works fine. New files are downloaded and processed. However, if the Task Scheduler runs the script, no new files are downloaded. The script is running under the same user, but yet yields different results.
According to the log files created by the script and on the linux box, the script successfully logs into the linux box. However, no files are downloaded despite there being new files. Again, when I run it via the command line, files are downloaded.
Any ideas? suggestions, alternative methods?
Thanks.
You can use the windows Task Scheduler, but make sure the "optional" field "Start In" is filled in.
In the Task Scheduler app, add an action that specifies your python file to run "doSomeWork" and fill in the Start in (optional) input with the directory that contains the file.. So for example if you have a python file in:
C:\pythonProject\doSomeWork.py
You would enter:
Program/Script: doSomeWork.py
Start in (optional): C:\pythonProject
I had the same issue when trying to open an MS Access database on a Linux VM. Running the script at the Windows 7 command prompt worked but running it in Task Scheduler didn't. With Task Scheduler it would find the database and verify it existed but wouldn't return the tables within it.
The solution was to have Task Scheduler run cmd as the Program/Script with the arguments /c python C:\path\to\script.py (under Add arguments (optional)).
I can't tell you why this works but it solved my problem.
I'm having a similar issue. In testing I found that any type of call with subprocess stops the python script when run in task scheduler but works fine when run on the command line.
import subprocess
print('Start')
test = subprocess.check_output(["dir"], shell=True)
print('First call finished')
When run on command line this outputs:
Start
First call finished
When run from task scheduler the output is:
Start
In order to get the output from task scheduler I run the python script from a batch file as follows:
python test.py >> log.txt
I run the script through the batch file both on command line and through task scheduler.
Brad's answer is right. Subprocess needs the shell context to work and the task manager can launch python without that. Another way to do it is to make a batch file that is launched by the task scheduler that calls python c:\path\to\script.py etc. The only difference to this is that if you run into a script that has a call to os.getcwd() you will always get the root where the script is but you get something else when you make the call to cmd from task scheduler.
Last edit - start
After experiments... If you put there full path to python program it works without highest privileges (as admin). Meaning task settings like this:
program: "C:\Program Files\Python37\python.exe"
arguments: "D:\folder\folder\python script.py"
I have no idea why, but it works even if script uses subprocess and multiple threads.
Last edit - end
What I did is I changed task settings: checked Run with highest privileges. And task started to work perfectly while running python [script path].
But keep in mind, that title contains "Administrator: " at the begining... always...
P.S. Thanks guys for pointing out that subprocess is a problem. It made me think of task settings.
I had similar problem when one script is running from Windows Task Scheduler, and another one doesn't.
Running cmd with python [script path] didn't work for me on Windows 8.1 Embedded x64. Not sure why. Probably because of necessity to have spaces in path and issue with quotes.
Hope my answer helps someone. ;)
Create a batch file add your python script in your batch file and then schedule that batch file .it will work .
Example : suppose your python script is in folder c:\abhishek\script\merun.py
first you have to go to directory by cd command .so your batch file would be like :
cd c:\abhishek\script
python merun.py
it work for me .
Just leaving this for posterity: A similar issue I faced was resolved by using the UNC (\10.x.xx.xx\Folder\xxx)path everywhere in my .bat and .py scripts instead of the letter assigned to the drive (\K:\Folder\xxx).
I had this issue before. I was able to run the task manually in Windows Task Scheduler, but not automatically. I remembered that there was a change in the time made by another user, maybe this change made the task scheduler to error out. I am not sure. Therefore, I created another task with a different name, for the same script, and the script worked automatically. Try to create a test task running the same script. Hopefully that works!
For Anaconda installation of python in windows below solution worked for me
create a batch file with below
"C:\Users\username\Anaconda3\condabin\activate" && python "script.py" &&
deactivate
Setup task to run this batch file