When creating tmux session through crontab, specifying the .bash_profile source path inside `tmux new session -d` command doesn't work

Question

What am I trying to achieve? I'm trying to get crontab to kill the previous tmux session and create a new tmux session (with particular teamocil settings).

Simple bash script that the crontab runs:

#!/bin/bash
tmux kill-session;
tmux new-session -d "source /home/qa/.bash_profile;teamocil settings;";

Issue I'm having? Running this script manually works fine, but when running through crontab it will only work if at least 2 other tmux sessions pre-exist, i.e. it kills a session as part of the script, if there are then no sessions left the crontab won't create the 1st session. If after killing a session there is still another session available, then the script works.

Findings so far? I've found that if I declare the source as part of the bash script, not in the tmux new sessions command, then it works fine. Why would this be? See modified script below that works:

#!/bin/bash
source /home/qa/.bash_profile
tmux kill-session;
tmux new-session -d "teamocil settings;";

It would be really helpful to understand why this made a difference, to help me update other scripts and not make this mistake again. Any light that can be shed on this is appreciated.

Answer 1

Put path to profile before path to script directly in crontab line, this will make script more flexible for future usage.

Explanation https://serverfault.com/questions/337631/crontab-execution-doesnt-have-the-same-environment-variables-as-executing-user

Very good answer https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/27289/how-can-i-run-a-cron-command-with-existing-environmental-variables

another very good answer https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/6790/executing-a-sh-script-from-the-cron

Recomendation: There is probably answer to you question somewhere. One needs just to search for it.