Stopped Posting

Hi there, Revive Old Posts uses the built-in WordPress cron system to send out posts. We just recently added a feature to determine when this system is not working as it should, that’s why you only now saw the notice(it was added in a recent update).

Do note that this wouldn’t mean that only ROP would have issues posting, it means that all your other plugins that have schedule tasks, such as importing, backing up etc. might also have trouble performing their tasks because they rely on the WordPress cron system.

The article listed shows how to create a True cron for your website so that your scheduled tasks always run, Method one is the easy way, but Method 2 is the preferred way.

If you install this plugin: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/wp-crontrol/ then head to Tools->Cron Events, you will see a view of the scheduled tasks on your website, there’s a high chance that all of them might be showing “Now” which indicates that they’re not getting triggered.

Can you send us a screenshot of that screen?

Thanks Uriahs. The tasks do indeed all show Now. I noticed one for a former plugin. When I deleted it, the error message at the top appeared: “there was a problem spawning a call to the WP-Cron system” with a “cURL error 35”.

I also notice rop (Revive Old Posts?) has 2 entries, neither of which match the plugin settings (daily). This may be normal to monitor the time set.

Don’t see a way to add an attachment so i’ll link to it:
https://davidya.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/WP-Cron-Davidya.png

I have had occasional issues with scheduled posts but ROP worked until the 26th of Sept.

Hi again, the second cron job would be deleted after it gets fired, as you can see it says “non-repeating”, that cron job is for the initial post which gets sent within 15 seconds of starting the sharing. The recurrence doesn’t mean the time the posts will share.

It means the time the task will be fired, so basically the cron task is checking if a post should be sent out, and it checks every minute. It shows up because at some point in debugging you might have tried stopping and starting sharing again

There could be any reason for the WP cron system not working as it should, by design it works off-website visits, so every time someone visits a website, if there’s a task to fire, it would fire.

Creating a true cron can easily fix the issue here, you can contact your web host for assistance, see here: https://docs.revive.social/article/686-fix-revive-old-post-not-posting

Method 1 is the easiest but Method 2 is recommended, let us know how it goes

Thanks Uriahs.
I tackled the described process for Method 2. Turned off WP-cron easily enough but the control panel didn’t have a section for cron jobs so I sent a request to my web host with the specs. Should hear from them tomorrow.

Great! Some webhosts don’t make it accessible to users but can create it, others don’t provide the ability, in either case you can also use Method 1.

Let us know how it goes

Hi Uriahs

My host uses Plesk and was not prepared to add a cron job (or equivalent).
Method 1 requires a monthly renewal or yearly fee which seems lame for a workaround.
A third fix I ran into was for sites that use http authentication. (like pop-up login boxes) wp-cron doesn’t have authentication so the ‘WP Cron HTTP auth’ plugin adds that. Alas, my hosts server didn’t like that one.

Back to Method 1, EasyCron seems to be doing the job running events when the cron cycle comes around again. That reduces server load too.

Thanks for your help. I would not consider this ideal but your updated plugin feature did alert me to an issue lurking behind the scenes. Thanks for that too.

Hi again @davidfb , an alternate service that might work for you in place of EasyCron is this one: https://cron-job.org

Do try it out in place of EasyCron and see how it works for you. You won’t need to renew monthly, I just found out about this service so we might soon update our doc to include it in place of EasyCron, it’s unfortunate that your host can’t create the server cron task for you but https://cron-job.org might be a good alternative solution

Ah, thanks Uriahs.
EasyCron deactivated already so I’m giving cron-job a try. It would be useful to know how to code for it as it’s just got a URL box. It did successfully trigger ROP with just the WP-cron URL but the cron-job log shows a 302 error.

I’m letting it run overnight with a higher posting frequency. We’ll see how it’s doing.

302 found is a redirection message, maybe you have the wrong URL in the address field of cron-job.org?

I tested it yesterday and it worked fine so we’ve updated our doc, you can find the updated instructions here:

https://docs.revive.social/article/686-fix-revive-old-post-not-posting

Thats a major update to the article – thanks. I had left off the ?doing suffix on the URL. We’ll see how it behaves today.

Well – it’s still throwing the 302 error.
Curiously, the cron triggers ROP the first time but doesn’t thereafter.

Found a Stackoverflow post that suggests the issue is likely a modSecurity firewall block. That wouldn’t surprise me.

I’m going to try adding HTTP authentication…

With authentication added, the Cron job is triggering ROP and other WP-cron events properly.
However, cron-job is still recording a 302 error. As it’s a minor error, I’m not concerned. I wouldn’t call it a perfect resolution but it’s working.
Thanks again!

Hi again @davidfb, 302 isn’t an “error” per se, it’s a response message which means that while trying to visit the URL, the page was redirected, this might most likely be due to the authentication you have going on or some other reason that I can’t tell via this medium, in this case it didn’t affect the ping from cron-job.org.

I did try on test sites and cron-job.org showed only successful responses which is why went ahead and updated the doc with this better solution for those users who can’t create a true cron.
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If you have a second, would you mind leaving us a review?

https://www.ads-software.com/support/plugin/tweet-old-post/reviews/?rate=5#new-post

We would really really appreciate it! Thank you for your time and support.

Agreed, Uriahs
The authentication has made it reliable. But with or without, it throws a 302 error. I suspect this is a server security setting so the cron appears moved. Essentially, this has been a dance to get it working with my current host. I appreciate your patience.

And yes, I did review some years ago.

Thanks @davidfb we hope it was a 5 star review! ??