Need Applescript to repeat every x number of seconds - osx-lion

Question

Here is my script so far:
property timeDelay : 5
on appOpen(appName)
tell application "System Events" to set appNameIsRunning to exists (processes where name is appName)
return appNameIsRunning
end appOpen
if appOpen("iChat") then
tell application "iChat"
repeat with theService in services
if connection status of theService = disconnected or connection status of theService = disconnecting then
log in of service (name of theService)
end if
end repeat
end tell
end if
Basically, it checks a single time if any of your iChat/Messages accts are logged out. If they are, log them in. It works.
However, I would like this to be a 'Stay Open' app. In the past I've used the pattern
on idle
-- do stuff
end idle
..but for some reason it's erroring when I try to compile.
Any idea why this would be happening?
EDIT:
Ok -- still not sure why this was occurring, but I was able to fix the problem by simply making a new script. I have no idea why this error was coming up but it looks like it's good now. Thanks for the help guys.

Answer 1

This doesn't make sense...
tell application "System Events" to set appNameIsRunning to exists (processes where name is appName)
You want this...
tell application "System Events" to set appNameIsRunning to exists process appName
The reason is that "processes where name is appName" will return a list (whether it has one item or many it's still a list) and it makes no sense to check "exists" of a list.
I'm not sure about the error but I hope that solves your problem.

Answer 2

This works for me on 10.6.8
property timeDelay : 5
on appOpen(appName)
tell application "System Events" to set appNameIsRunning to exists process appName
return appNameIsRunning
end appOpen
on idle
if appOpen("iChat") then
tell application "iChat"
repeat with theService in services
if connection status of theService = disconnected or connection status of theService = disconnecting then
tell service (name of theService) to log in
end if
end repeat
end tell
end if
return timeDelay
end idle