Problem running system script from FMSA 10

[Drew Sanderson]

Objective: Schedule to Print a PDF from records and send via SMTP

Current Solution: With applescript, have local FMPA 10 launch and connect to FMSA 10 through use of a URL. The specific user is recognized during a start-up script and redirected to perform the above mentioned task and the close the file. This works perfect with Applescript. I have also tried saving the applescript as an application and then use the open command in terminal to launch the application. This also works perfect.

Problem: FMSA 10 will not run this process either way. Please see the below errors from the server log.

2009-01-29 13:00:21.782 -0500	Error	154	filemaker	Schedule "_12 IRG" aborted; "fax_vendor.sh" could not be found or is invalid.

2009-01-29 13:00:21.782 -0500	Information	126	filemaker	Schedule "_12 IRG" scheduled for 01/30/2009 12:00 PM.

2009-01-29 13:00:24.812 -0500	Information	148	filemaker	Schedule "_14 IRG" running.

2009-01-29 13:00:24.851 -0500	Information	688	filemaker	Schedule "_14 IRG" has started system script "test.scpt" with process ID 10447.

2009-01-29 13:00:24.934 -0500	Error	691	filemaker	Schedule "_14 IRG" aborted; time limit exceeded.

Here is the applescript:

tell application "FileMaker Pro Advanced"

	

	activate

	

	getURL "fmp7://user:password@###.###.#.#/file.fp7"

	

end tell

Here is the shell script:

#!/bin/sh

exec /usr/bin/open /Users/local_admin/Documents/fax_vendors.app

Any ideas out there??? I have been digging for documentation for hours with no luck.

Thanks,

Drew

[Wim Decorte]

Generally it's a bad idea to want to do this on the server. FMP is a user-UI driven application and you're trying to run it on a server that should have no user logged in at all.

You should be doing this through a "robot" machine where you can have a user logged in.

[Drew Sanderson]

I totally agree with you about the robot and have done so with this application for over a year. It has been plagued with unreliability! An example of the unreliability comes when i may reboot the server and then need to go to the robot machine to get it going again. Do to the nature of the sole purpose of a robot machine, I often forget about its existence until time goes by and realize a feature is not working. I also agree that a local user should not be logged in on the server but at this point, I am looking for an alternative to my current situation. Not to mention that the practice of having a robot is not very green. I have tried to make some other simple system scripts just to see if I could do so successfully with no avail.

Edited January 30, 2009 by Guest

[Wim Decorte]

The pain point in your process is the PDFing. You could do this with Custom web publishing and PHP (or any other web technology like ASP.NET or Flex). But that does require some new skills. So the question becomes: what is more painful: learning the new skills or the upkeep on the current workaround?

Food for thought...

[Drew Sanderson]

Well I decided to cut to the chase and use crontab. Worked like a charm. I will have to catch up with someone at Devcon about doing this.