Missing Your WordPress Scheduled Posts?

December 31, 2009 by Kathy Drewien · View Comments
Filed under: WordPress - Blog Tips, Plugins & How-To 

Many WordPress users report their self-hosted WordPress site missed scheduled posts. The earliest reports of the “missed schedule” posts date back to WordPress version 2.7, with more frequent reports noted with the WordPress version 2.9 upgrade.

I believe this is because the timeout value is too short: wp_remote_post($cron_url, array(‘timeout’ => 0.01, ‘blocking’ => false));

When making a request to wp-cron.php, it won’t return until all cron jobs are executed. And 0.01 is too short. It doesn’t hurt to extend the time span, as much as 10 minutes even. It will return as long as the mature crons are fired up and executed; in most cases only a few seconds.

For those of you who know how to edit the /wp-includes/cron.php file, simply edit 0.01 to 10 and extend the time allowed for running future scheduled posts.

Detailed instructions for extending the timeout value in /wp-includes/cron.php are below. You need ftp access to your server and a text editor. I use Notepad++, however Notepad2 or Notepad may work well for you.

How To Correct Missed Schedule Posts in WordPress

  1. Login to your ftp server account and locate the /wp-includes/cron.php file.

    How-To Fix Your Missed Scheduled Posts in WordPress: Image 1 ftp screen capture
    The cron.php file is located within the wp-includes folder.
    How-To Fix Your Missed Scheduled Posts in WordPress: Image 2 ftp screen capture

  2. Open the cron.php file in your source code editor.
    NOTE: Save a copy of the original file to your desktop prior to editing.


    Locate the following source code in the cron.php file.
    }
    set_transient( ‘doing_cron’, $local_time );
    $cron_url = get_option( ‘siteurl’ ) . ‘/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron’; wp_remote_post( $cron_url, array(‘timeout’ => 0.01, ‘blocking’ => false, ‘sslverify’ => apply_filters(‘https_local_ssl_verify’, true)) );  }

  3. Change ‘timeout’ => 0.01 to ‘timeout’ => 10
  4. Save the edited cron.php file and upload to the /wp-includes folder, overwriting the current cron.php file
    REMEMBER: Backup the original file before overwriting.
  5. Schedule a post and test for success.

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