[MPlayer-users] mplayer works from command line but not from cron

[James J. Eaton]

The Background
I am trying to record a real player stream. The stream is not live, just
a 30 minute recording. I set this up to be done once a week after the
new recording is made available on the website. To do this I have
written a script which I call from cron at the appropriate time.

The Problem.
Sometimes, and not everytime, when cron runs the script mplayer aborts
about 10 seconds after it starts. I get the following messages

Quote:
No bind found for key 'W'.
No bind found for key 'B'.
No bind found for key 'B'.
No bind found for key 'C'.
No bind found for key ':'.
No bind found for key 'c'.
No bind found for key 'c'.
No bind found for key 'c'.
No bind found for key '_'.
No bind found for key 'G'.
No bind found for key 'C'.
These messages vary each time. In other words they are not the same each
time mplayer fails.
I have read somewhere that when these messages are issued, there may be
something wrong with the stream.


I have changed the call to mplayer so that it now runs with -v option,
and here is the output from that

Quote:
MPlayer 2:0.99+1.0pre8-0ubuntu8 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+ (Family: 15, Model:
75, Stepping: 2)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.


[file] File size is 39 bytes
STREAM: [file] /tmp/Im_Sorry_I_Havent_a_Clue.txt
STREAM: Description: File
STREAM: Author: Albeu
STREAM: Comment: based on the code from ??? (probably Arpi)
Parsing playlist file /tmp/Im_Sorry_I_Havent_a_Clue.txt...
Trying asx...
Trying Winamp playlist...
Trying extended m3u playlist...
Trying reference-ini playlist...
Trying smil playlist...
Trying plaintext playlist...
Playlist successfully parsed
get_path('codecs.conf') -> '/home/bananabob/.mplayer/codecs.conf'
Reading /home/bananabob/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open
'/home/bananabob/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf':
No such file or directory
Using built-in default codecs.conf.
CommandLine: '-v' '-novideo' '-quiet' '-nortc' '-nojoystick'
'-prefer-ipv4' '-nolirc' '-playlist' '/tmp/Im_Sorry_I_Havent_a_Clue.txt'
'-ao' 'pcm:file=/home/audio/download/Im_Sorry_I_Havent_a_Clue.wav' '-vc'
'null' '-vo' 'null'
init_freetype
get_path('font/font.desc') -> '/home/bananabob/.mplayer/font/font.desc'
font: can't open file: /home/bananabob/.mplayer/font/font.desc
font: can't open file: /usr/share/mplayer/font/font.desc
Using MMX (with tiny bit MMX2) Optimized OnScreenDisplay
Using nanosleep() timing
get_path('input.conf') -> '/home/bananabob/.mplayer/input.conf'
Parsing input config file /home/bananabob/.mplayer/input.conf
Input config file /home/bananabob/.mplayer/input.conf parsed: 60 binds
get_path('1230_mon.ra.conf') -> '/home/bananabob/.mplayer/1230_mon.ra.conf'

Playing rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/bbc7/1230_mon.ra.
get_path('sub/') -> '/home/bananabob/.mplayer/sub/'
STREAM_RTSP, URL: rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/bbc7/1230_mon.ra
Filename for url is now rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/bbc7/1230_mon.ra
Filename for url is now rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/bbc7/1230_mon.ra
Resolving rmv8.bbc.net.uk for AF_INET...
Connecting to server rmv8.bbc.net.uk[212.58.240.195]: 554...
Cache size set to 640 KBytes
STREAM: [realrtsp] rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/bbc7/1230_mon.ra
STREAM: Description: RealNetworks rtsp streaming
STREAM: Author: Roberto Togni, xine team
STREAM: Comment: ported from xine
CACHE_PRE_INIT: 0 [0] 0 pre:131072 eof:0

Cache fill: 0.00% (0 bytes)

<repeats several time>


Cache fill: 0.00% (0 bytes)
vo: x11 uninit called but X11 not inited..

Exiting... (End of file)

I have tried running using export DISPLAY but that does not work either.
I believe that the X11 message is a red herring

The Question

How can I fix this so that it will run from cron?

Cheers
James