launchctl status returns 2

Question

I'm trying to write a launchd script that will run a Python script every hour.

I created the following file in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/

com.b00tahead.engage-check.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.b00tahead.engage-check</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin/python3</string>
        <string>Projects/engage_scripts/engage_check.py</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>3600</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

I then run:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.b00tahead.engage-check.plist
launchctl start com.b00tahead.engage-check

When I run launchctl list it shows the process as:

PID Status  Label
-   2       com.b00tahead.engage-check

I'm not exactly sure what that return code indicates. I can run the script just fine through the terminal as python3 Projects/engage_scripts/engage_check.py

The Python script writes some data to a .txt file on my desktop.

This is what launchctl list com.b00tahead.engage-check returns:

{
    "LimitLoadToSessionType" = "Aqua";
    "Label" = "com.b00tahead.engage-check";
    "TimeOut" = 30;
    "OnDemand" = true;
    "LastExitStatus" = 512;
    "Program" = "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin/python3";
    "ProgramArguments" = (
        "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin/python3";
        "Projects/engage_scripts/engage_check.py";
    );
};

Answer 1

My guess is that the argument in ProgramArguments should have an absolute path (not relative such as Projects/...).

In case of error, system log should be checked, e.g.

tail -f /var/log/system.log

or custom log can be used by specifying these lines:

<key>StandardOutPath</key>
<string>/var/log/myjob.log</string>
<key>StandardErrorPath</key>
<string>/var/log/myjob.log</string>

See: Debugging launchd Jobs section of Creating Launch Daemons and Agents page.