cron job to tape starts up twice SCO 5.0.6 2

[MonocleMike]

I have a cron script that worked perfectly on an earlier machine with DAT tape that intermittently fails on my new
Compaq ML370 with SCSI DLT and 5.0.6. The script starts
echo "`date` Starting tape backup" >> logfile
tape reset
sleep 30
tape rewind
sleep 30
tape status
and intermittently it appears to start twice! One instance works correctly and of course the other one reports errors because the device is in use.
Has anyone any suggestions?

 

[stanhubble]

what does the crontab entry look like?
do you have a time daemon running? (xntpd)

 

[MonocleMike]

crontab entry is
0 23 * * 1-5 /u/mikej/tape.nightly

I don't think I've got xntpd running unless it is installed by default. Sadly I can't get on to the machine from here to check.

 

[Annihilannic]

There are some cron patches that Ed keeps mentioning, do you have them installed? (a keyword search should track 'em down quickly). Annihilannic.

 

[stanhubble]

I keep forgetting about this one as well:

SLS oss642a: Cron Supplement

Date posted: 17-SEP-01

For: OpenServer Release 5.0.4, 5.0.5 and 5.0.6

Description:
This SLS addresses various problems in the cron daemon, including the "job sometimes runs twice" problem.


ftp://ftp.caldera.com/pub/openserver5/oss642a

 

[edfair]

Custom should show it up. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.