# crontab: "vi" exited with status 1 - FreeBSD



## bryn1u (Feb 2, 2015)

Hey,

I was looking for some resolve but find nothing or hasn't worked.

```
bryn1u@Proton.edu.pl:[~]:$> crontab -e
crontab: no crontab for bryn1u - using an empty one
ex/vi: Input encoding conversion not supported
ex/vi: Error: Log file: Permission denied
crontab: "vi" exited with status 1
```
Someone can help?


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## getopt (Feb 2, 2015)

See manual  crontab(1)



			
				man crontab said:
			
		

> If the allow file exists, then you must be listed therein in order to be allowed to use this command.  If the allow file  does not exist but the deny file does exist, then you must not be listed in the deny file in order to use this command.  If neither of these files exists, then depending on site-dependent configuration parameters, only the super user will be allowed to use this command, or all users will be able to use this command.



Your permission is not sufficient to edit the file. `crontab -e` uses the Vi to edit the file. The error message has nothing to do with a malfunction of Vi.


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## chrbr (Feb 2, 2015)

Dear getopt, thank you, I was not aware of this option.I have tried to put my user account in the deny file, just for curiosity. The output is different as

```
$ crontab -l
crontab: you (chris) are not allowed to use this program
$ crontab -e
crontab: you (chris) are not allowed to use this program
```
Dear bryn1u, have you used some "special characters" within in the lines you want to add to the crontab?
If this is correct please try to limit your crontab entry to some ASCII code. May be this helps, may be not. I have stumbled over encoding issues a few times as well. It might be worth to try.


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## junovitch@ (Feb 3, 2015)

If this is a character encoding issue it would help to know what you have in your /etc/login.conf.  Also you can try using a different editor as maybe another one will deal with encoding better.  Example: If you have editors/vim installed run `env EDITOR=vim crontab -e` to use it.


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## PacketMan (Feb 3, 2015)

I had a similar problem recently. For me it turned out that Plex media server had changed the permissions of my /tmp folder.


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