WP Cron issue

Andreas

Hey guys

I was wondering if anyone had noticed warnings in WP that WP Cron is disabled
I noticed a few plugins informing me that WP cron is disabled.

After a bit of troubleshooting, the fix was to remove the line define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', 'false' ); from the wp-config.php file.

If I set it to false or true, the plugins would tell me WP cron is disabled.

Once I removed the line from wp-config.php, the error went away and my cron jobs in WP started working again.

Also during my troubleshooting, I discover this plugin https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-crontrol/
Found some old WP cron jobs that should have been removed, but were still hanging around.

I was wondering if anyone has noticed this.

I had Adam working with me on this as well. I have some other sites that I know use WP cron function, so I will be moving them over shortly to see how they go as well.

xyzulu

Enhance configure this.. as well as a hourly server cron. This warning is completely normal. Really, you should leave that line in your wp-config.php file or you will have negated the benefits of a server side (wp cli) cron.

The plugins giving you that warning are not "smart" enough to determine that a server side cron is running instead.

Andreas

xyzulu if I leave the line in, then tasks are not running. Wp Cron works when I take the line out

xyzulu

Andreas tasks DO run.. at the time wp-cli triggers the cron (you can see this in the developer section of the website in Enhance)

twest

It could also be that the default cron isn't running "often enough". I usually change it to run every 5 or 15 mins and don't have any issues with various plugins getting their scheduled tasks fired off in time.

Andreas

No it wasn't working for 2 days.
This website creates posts from RSS feeds.
Every 2 hours, it loads up RSS feeds and looks for new posts, and grabs them, and posts them.
When the site was moved over, it stopped. No new posts for 2 days.

After troubleshooting, It started working when i removed the line define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', 'true' );

So I added the line back into wp-config.php file and set enhance cron to run every minute.
And waited for the next run to come. It did, and nothing happened.

I removed the line define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', 'true' );
Waited for the next batch to run, and it did, and new posts were created.

Nick

I had this same issue with a mainwp site. But after removing disable wp cron from wp-config it worked like normal. Maybe the issue was that it was only running once every 60 minute and that is not often enough like @twest suggested. I dont know. Will do a test and set the wp-cli cron to trigger every 5 minutes and check if it works then.

Maybe this is also affecting any other client sites that runs different plugins, as they also have disable wp cron in config as standard.

xyzulu

Nick Will do a test and set the wp-cli cron to trigger every 5 minutes and check if it works then.

Do this.. this is far more efficient than leaving the Wordpress "normal" cron enabled (which triggers/checks when a page is hit). Even running the wp-cli cron every 1min is going to be better than removing ( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', 'true' ); from your wp-config.php file.

Andreas

xyzulu Just using enhance wp-cli cron is not working though. Tasks are not firing off

xyzulu

su to the user/container in question and run the wp-cli cron manually perhaps there is an error on your Wordpress website that is preventing it running. At least I you run it manually you will see the output.

CaveJohnson

is there a way to modify how frequently the cron runs (globally / at a site level?)

Some plugins such as newsletter senders require the cron to be called more frequently when sending a newsletter campaign

xyzulu

CaveJohnson is there a way to modify how frequently the cron runs (globally / at a site level?)

Yes. Website > Advanced > Developer Tools > Cron jobs

Shaijee

For me, setting DISABLE_WP_CRON to 'true' or 'false' results in the same outcome - Cron does not run. Therefore, I decided to remove it from the wp-config file, and everything is back to normal.

Ideally, it should function according to the correct logic - if set to true, it should not run; if set to false, Cron should run. Enhance should improve Cron configuration and functionality.

xyzulu

Shaijee For me, setting DISABLE_WP_CRON to 'true' or 'false' results in the same outcome - Cron does not run.

That isn't what that setting does.. that setting disables the built in WP cron.. not the ability of the cli cron to run. Enhance have got this behaviour right.

Shaijee

DISABLE_WP_CRON true = WordPress default; do not run.
DISABLE_WP_CRON false = WordPress default; do not run.

Is this the right behavior, xyzulu?

xyzulu

Yes, this is correct.
Running the wp-cli cron will work with both those settings.

CaveJohnson

Is there a way to change the default cron globally for all sites?

xyzulu

CaveJohnson change it, how?

CaveJohnson

as in change it from the default "hourly" to every 15 minutes for example. Change it across all sites in one go?

xyzulu

That might be possible.. but I have not done this on Enhance (only for "normal" crontab). Perhaps open a support ticket to ask?