Strangeness: Cannot write to a file from a process created by Windows Task Scheduler ...

MRAB python at mrabarnett.plus.com
Mon Oct 26 13:55:37 EDT 2009


Sandy Walsh wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> Seeing some really weird behavior and perhaps someone has seen something 
> similar:
> 
> I have a python script that launches as a Windows Scheduled Task. The 
> program simply opens a disk file and writes some text to it:
> 
> ---
> f = open("waiting.txt", "w")
> x = 0
> while 1:
>    f.write("Sleeping: %d\r\n" % x)
>    x += 1
>    time.sleep(2)
> 
> f.close()
> ---
> 
> I've run it under my user account. I've run it as Local Account. I've 
> run it via pythonw and python ... only one way works:
> 
> When I run with full credentials (not local account) and python (not 
> pythonw) I get output in the file (and a CMD window appears while it's 
> running). In every other combination it creates the 'waiting.txt' file, 
> but doesn't write any output to the file. The length of the file is 0 
> bytes.
> 
> Anyone have ideas what could be causing this? I suspect it's blocking on 
> something, but I can't imagine where.
> 
> There is no stderr/stdout output anywhere in the program so it's not 
> blocking on anything stdio related (that I can imagine)
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
1. I don't see "import time" anywhere.

2. Output to the file is buffered. When the script is terminated
whatever is still in the output buffer will be lost.

BTW, the "f.close()" is pointless because of the infinite loop.



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