How to Automatically Start Cronicle on Mac Boot

[mfranzel]

Hello,
I was hoping someone could help.

I installed Cronicle on my Mac mini M4 and it is working great! It's an amazing tool! However, I was wondering if there is a way to make it start automatically when the Mac turns on?

[jhuckaby]

Does this still work?

https://github.com/jhuckaby/Cronicle/blob/master/docs/CommandLine.md#server-startup

It used to.

I haven't tried it on macOS Sonoma or Sequoia yet, and certainly not on an M4, so it's possible Apple is now thwarting the old LaunchAgent plist trick, which this uses.

[mfranzel]

Nope... didn't work :(

[jhuckaby]

Ah crap, Apple must have changed something. I'll look into it as soon as I have some time.

Here's the code in question -- it used to work:

https://github.com/jhuckaby/pixl-boot/blob/master/boot.js#L207-L245

[jhuckaby]

This should be fixed in v0.9.62.

https://github.com/jhuckaby/Cronicle/releases/tag/v0.9.62

Upgrade instructions are here: https://github.com/jhuckaby/Cronicle/blob/master/docs/CommandLine.md#upgrading-cronicle

Remember that on macOS the boot behavior will be different depending on if you run the npm run boot command as root (recommended), or as your standard macOS user:

• If you run npm run boot as root or sudo, which is the recommended way, then Cronicle will be installed as a system-level LaunchDaemon, and will start when the Mac first boots up, before any user logs in. It will run as root, which is how it was designed to run.
• If you run npm run boot as your user account, then Cronicle will be installed as a local LaunchAgent, and only start when you actually login, and the macOS Finder / Desktop loads up. It will run as your user, and not root. Cronicle will also not be able to switch users for jobs in this mode.

[mfranzel]

I updated per your instructions, which was successful. I changed directories to/opt/cronicle while as root. I ran npm run boot and the output said

> [email protected] boot
> pixl-boot install

Installing startup service: Cronicle...OK.
Successfully registered startup service.

I rebooted but Cronicle did not start up automatically. I tried it as my user as well, but still no dice.

[jhuckaby]

Hmmm..... this works perfectly on my Mac Mini M2 with macOS Sonoma. I wonder what's going on with your situation. I guess it could be something weird with macOS Sequoia, but OH.... did you install Node.js using the macOS installer (GUI app), so your Node binary is located here:

/usr/local/bin/node

It needs to exist there, or at /usr/bin/node, for the auto-boot startup thing to work.

It will not work with any of those "Node.js version managers" (nvm and family) because those install Node.js to a weird location.

If all that is correct on your Mac, then we need to dig deeper and look at the logs. Try clearing out all the logs in /opt/cronicle/logs/*.log and then doing a reboot. See if any new logs appear in that directory at startup. Perhaps it's trying to start but encountering some kind of error?