# Occasional virtualenv: command not found **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [January 25, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/occasional-virtualenv-command-not-found/84010 "2019-01-25T15:19:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jcormier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a587f6/32.png) [@jcormier](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jcormier)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/occasional-virtualenv-command-not-found/84010/1 "2019-01-25T15:19:59Z")
certbot-auto is setup to run every 12 hours via cron and usually runs without issue. But twice in the last two months, certbot-auto will exit with the below virtualenv error, and cron sends me a failure email. I'd like to see if there is a reason for these failures or if we should just ignore them. First failure happened on Jan 3rd, and second on Jan 25th. My domain is: [syr.criticallink.com](http://syr.criticallink.com) I ran this command: sudo /etc/letsencrypt/certbot-auto renew -q It produced this output: > /etc/letsencrypt/certbot-auto: line 1004: virtualenv: command not found My web server is (include version): apache The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): $ lsb\_release -d Description: Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS I can login to a root shell on my machine (yes or no, or I don't know): yes The version of my client is (e.g. output of `certbot --version` or `certbot-auto --version` if you're using Certbot): $ sudo /etc/letsencrypt/certbot-auto --version certbot 0.30.1 ---
**Author:** ![stevenzhu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/stevenzhu/32/18864_2.png) [@stevenzhu](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/stevenzhu)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 3:32pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/occasional-virtualenv-command-not-found/84010/2 "2019-01-25T15:32:14Z")
Hi, Can you please check if virtualenv is installed? Also, what version of python are you using? Thank you ---
**Author:** ![jcormier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a587f6/32.png) [@jcormier](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jcormier)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 3:51pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/occasional-virtualenv-command-not-found/84010/3 "2019-01-25T15:51:45Z")
It would have to be installed for the tool to work most of the time. ``` $ which virtualenv /usr/local/bin/virtualenv $ virtualenv --version 16.0.0 $ python --version Python 2.7.12 ``` ---
**Author:** ![rg305](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/rg305/32/91314_2.png) [@rg305](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/rg305)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/occasional-virtualenv-command-not-found/84010/4 "2019-01-26T00:16:07Z")
> [@jcormier](#): > > I ran this command: **sudo /etc/letsencrypt/certbot-auto renew -q** Just to be sure, is that exactly how it is shown with: `crontab -l` ---
**Author:** ![jcormier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a587f6/32.png) [@jcormier](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jcormier)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 3:47pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/occasional-virtualenv-command-not-found/84010/5 "2019-01-28T15:47:16Z")
> [@rg305](#): > > > [@jcormier](#): > > > > I ran this command: **sudo /etc/letsencrypt/certbot-auto renew -q** > > Just to be sure, is that exactly how it is shown with: > `crontab -l` ```nohighlight $ sudo crontab -l ... # Every 12 hours check for letsencrypt renew 0 */12 * * * /etc/letsencrypt/certbot-auto renew -q ``` ---
**Author:** ![jcormier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a587f6/32.png) [@jcormier](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jcormier)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 3:52pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/occasional-virtualenv-command-not-found/84010/6 "2019-01-28T15:52:06Z")
A coworker pointed out that virtualenv is installed in several ways. ```auto which virtualenv --> /usr/local/bin/virtualenv dpkg --listfiles virtualenv --> /usr/bin/virtualenv [which does not exist] $ pip list | grep virt virtualenv 16.0.0 virtualenv-clone 0.3.0 [/usr/local/bin/virtualenv is installed via pip] dpkg --get-selections|grep virtualenv python-virtualenv install python3-virtualenv install virtualenv install ``` Which I think is throwing off the script. I think it sees that virtualenv package is installed and expects virtualenv to be in the path, but it is in /usr/local/bin instead and it cannot find it. I don’t think /usr/local/bin is in the PATH for root crontab. Strangely this seems to work most of the time ---
**Author:** ![jcormier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a587f6/32.png) [@jcormier](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/jcormier)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 4:12pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/occasional-virtualenv-command-not-found/84010/7 "2019-01-28T16:12:29Z")
Updated cron entry to specify the /usr/local/bin. Quick tests look promising. ```auto # Every 12 hours check for letsencrypt renew 0 */12 * * * PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin /etc/letsencrypt/certbot-auto renew -q ``` ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/occasional-virtualenv-command-not-found/84010/8 "2019-02-27T16:13:30Z")
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