[3.3.x] Support Forum • Re: Periodic tasks have stopped running

Well miraculously both the digest mailer and the auto backups started working again this morning.

I'm still waiting for some clarity from my hosting service but I know they were looking into the cron job for me so I suspect they found it was stuck and just kicked it off again.

Well my hosting provider support got back to me and said this:

Hi there,

The only thing that I can guess could have caused this issue was an update to the way the default PHP binary works, by automatically using the version of PHP that is chosen by the PHP selector in cPanel.

Your cron did use unusual syntax it was:

cd /home/fellfixe/public_html/ftfforum && bin/phpbbcli.php cron:run

And it should have been :

/opt/alt/php74/usr/bin/php -l /home/fellfixe/public_html/ftfforum/bin/phpbbcli.php cron:run

Or

/usr/bin/php -l /home/fellfixe/public_html/ftfforum/bin/phpbbcli.php cron:run

As you can see your cron comomand did not specify the application used to run the cron which I believe led to the incompatibility / issue.

I know I got the 'unusual' syntax from the installation instructions in the FAQ for the Digests extension and it was working fine. I don't really understand the explanation given by the hosting support guy for why it suddenly stopped working but it sounds like something changed on their side which invalidated the command syntax.

So now the the cron job appears to be running and producing the following output in the log file:

[2024-12-28 13:30:02] - Included in script: phpbbcli.php - No errors

But my earlier post saying the problem was fixed turns out to be premature. As before, digests are not being mailed and the auto database backups are not executing with the 'next backup time' stuck in the past at one day after the last successful backup.

As per the suggestions from

The tasks processed by phpBB's cron job are stored in the phpbb_tasks database table... Additionally, check the cron.lock file in the /cache directory; if it exists, delete it to reset the cron lock. Ensure the periodic tasks are still enabled in the settings of the respective extensions, and verify that your system cron job (executing the cron.php file) is running correctly by reviewing logs from your hosting provider once they are available.

There is no phpbb_tasks table in my installation. A cron.lock file does not exist in the /cache directory. The periodic tasks are still enabled in the extensions settings. The cron job appears to be executing but given the issue identified with the command syntax maybe the command is still wrong?

Re

There is no _tasks table in vanilla phpBB, at least I haven't found one in several installations.
AFAIK phpBB uses the config variables ending with _gc to determine the interval between two cron job runs and _last_gc to determine the last run of a cron job.

Where do I find these variables defined so I can check their values?

Statistics: Posted by AndySt — Sat Dec 28, 2024 6:51 pm

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