W3 Total Cache and Backup Buddy

I just now saw this. Different plugin, but same problem I am having:

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/scheduled-database-backups-no-longer-working?replies=18

I would love to downgrade to version 0.9.2.4 which backed up fine and didn’t have this infinite loop issue. Three questions:

1) Can version 0.9.2.4 be downloaded somewhere?

2) Are there any special downgrade instructions?

3) Are there any database or other compatibility issues in moving back?

Thanks.

Let me tell you guys that I even have W3 Total Cache installed on my wordpress site & after adding this define(‘ALTERNATE_WP_CRON’, true); in the wp-config file it gave me a backup in no time & stopped pinging excessively. However, I still kept getting the error at the back of my url like this:

https://shiftopinions.com/?doing_wp_cron=1358447319.5469269752502441406250

I am using GoDaddy. Godaddy has a cron job manager. Excellent. Awesome. Superb. However, I was extremely dis-appointed when I called GoDaddy support to enable loopbacks for the shared linux hosting server to which they replied in the negative. Bad. My bad.

However…

After reading what JochenT wrote here & then implementing exactly what he asked us to do, I’m absolutely delighted, astonished & ecstatic as I have successfully been able to resolve the issue. YES, the problem has been solved as far as the ?doing_wp_cron=1358447319.5469269752502441406250 problem is concerned.

I added:

*/3 * * * * wget --tries=3 --timeout=90 -O ~/wpcron-out.html https://www.shiftopinions.com/wp-cron.php >>~/wpcron-log 2>&1
* to the command field needed in the create cron job area.

I chose every 5 minutes twice every hour which says: 5 minutes & then 35 minutes.

I added the following code below to wp-config.php file of my site which has backupbuddy plugin installed:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

// define('ALTERNATE_WP_CRON', true); // needed if loopback is not enabled

I’ll just check whether backupbuddy is functioning well as far as the automation of backups is concerned.

My only concern now is to send backup files of over 10 MB to the email address I wish to which I think is something that needs a lookover into. If someone can help with this it will great.

Resources:

https://www.computerhope.com/unix/ucrontab.htm
https://www.activecampaign.com/help/setting-up-a-cron-job/

An Update:

The above task given to do by TJochen has resulted in my wordpress plugins getting upgraded slower than how they were. So for sure the speed has been slowed down by the real cron job it seems & the editing of the wp-config file by adding the “disable wp cron” as true & “enable alternate cron” as true. Not sure if that is the reason why the wordpress site’s speed has slowed down while upgrading plugins.

“JochenT” is an absolutely special wordpress user, guy, person, human being & a generous giver. Absolutely. Awesome. Thanks a ton. Love.

Would appreciate if you would give a little more hand to helping us make our wordpress sites & blogs work better for all of us. Sincerely. Seriously I’d love you to add some more tips to make wordpress work efficiently for us.

Thanks.

Sincerely,
Ronak.

I had this all working, then I upgraded to the new cache plugin, nthen it broke, not I downgraded to the old cache plugin and it is still broken.

wpriley did you ever get it working after the downgrade? I actually did downgrade but it’s still not working again for a schedualed or a manual backup. Something from the other w3Ttotal Cache install is left behind or something.

The minute I removed the plugin completely things worked fine. I was running 0.9.25 so I need to go back to a backup and see what version I had that was in fact working before the upgrade mess to the latest. total crap that this wonderful plugin breaks CRON

I was running 0.9.25 stable before this started so still not sure what is still broken when it gets re-installed.

I’m the author of UpdraftPlus, another backup plugin, and have had several reports in the last few days of broken-ness, each of which was traced back to W3 Total Cache.

UpdraftPlus would save a transient, then a separate run would load it 5 minutes later – but it’s not there; it’s gone. Disabling W3 Total Cache has fixed such problems in each case.

So can ANYBODY determine what in W3TotalCache is preventing CRON from working? Seriously, they are not speaking up and it’s frustrating. Can you as another plugin author debug the settings and see if there is tickbox or tweak someplace that gets CRON working again since you also rely on it?

I am sure once we find it ALL things broken with CRON like scheduled posts and backups wil again start working.

The W3TtotalCache people need to start speaking up and helping here!

In the reports I had, cron runs were running, but transients saved 5 minutes earlier (with an expiry time of 9 hours) were not being found. One user indicated that turning off object/transient cacheing fixed his problem. I have not reproduced the problem myself.

I have 100% removed it, copying to a test server and I am going to re-install and try only having basic things enabled like CDN and see what happens. STILL it needs to be fixed by Frederick and team. I say start tweeting the #EpicFail of the plugin with CRON jobs INCLUDING scheduled posts as well. It’s not just backups that fail now.

I have verified on a duplicate server that with NO W3TC plugin both backup and schedulaed posts run fine with the standard wp-cron setup.

Next is to re-install the plugin and see if I can figure out what the heck breaks it. Any other insights would be great but right now everything 100% WORKS before the install of the caching plugin.

Okay this is CRAP for real. I did the MOST BASIC of tests.

1) Installed the W3Total Cache Plugin
2) Network Enabled it
3) Made sure ALL settings were in fact disabled

Testing backups and schedualed posts = FAILED!

Disabled plugin (Kept it installed) – re-ran and all things PASSED

SO WTF? Just enabling this plugin alone with NO settings craps out the CRON jobs? That’s completely fouled up!

Also did the same test disabling wp-cron and calling from a real CRON job with the same results. BUG!

SO I reverted back to 0.9.2.5 and got things working again. However, something I discovered is you need to not only DISABLE object cache but you need to REMOVE the object-cache.php file from /wp-content for CRON jobs to start working again.

I am still working on the new version but nothing seems to work. I have filed a bug that it must be de-activated for it to work. I also have a manual CRON job running every 5 mins now and that works when the new one is not activated. I will need to stay on 0.9.2.5 until they work out this bug.