Personable Media

The Most Effective Website Creators On Earth

303-800-5415
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • Give Back Program
  • Services
    • New Websites
    • After Your Website Is Up
    • Lead Generation
    • Business Listings & Reviews
    • Start Your Own Website Blog
  • VIDEOS
  • Articles
    • WordPress
    • Lead Generation
    • Blogging
      • Website Design & Development Experts
    • Social Media
    • Give Back
  • Reviews
  • Book
    • Update Payment Method
  • Toggle Mobile Menu
  • Toggle Search
  • 303-800-5415
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Email

Why Did My Scheduled Blog Post in WordPress Not Publish?

April 5, 2021 by Justin Daniel

We have seen this as a common question from clients, “I scheduled a blog post on my WordPress site to publish and it says it missed schedule, why did this happen?”  In WordPress you can write a blog post and ask WordPress to publish the blog at a later time and date. WP Cron is how WordPress handles scheduling time-based tasks in WordPress. Several WordPress core features, such as checking for updates and publishing scheduled post, utilize WP-Cron. WP Cron does not run like UNIX cron jobs, it is only triggered on page load. So if your site does not have regular traffic, these WP Cron events can be delayed.

How did the blog publishing fail?

There are several reason why a WP Cron event, which publish the blog post, might fail. Here is a list of the most common reasons:

  • Your web hosting provider is rate limiting the cron event runner. “429 Too Many Requests”
  • Low traffic websites may not trigger the event runner often enough
  • A fatal error caused by a plugin or theme may break the event runner
  • A plugin or theme may intentionally or unintentionally break the event runner
  • BasicAuth, a firewall, or other access restrictions may block the event runner
  • A problem with your web hosting or web server may break the event runner
  • The DISABLE_WP_CRON configuration constant is set but no alternative cron runner has been put in place
  • Long-running events may temporarily block the event runner
  • High traffic websites may suffer from sequential processing issues that block the event runner

From this list you can see its very apparent WP Cron jobs need a lot of nurturing in order to behave the way the user expects, and a lot of that falls on the hosting provider.

How do we find out what caused the failure?

The best way to check for the reason of the failure is to look at your hosting server error logs or access logs for any entries including the “wp-cron.php” file. If you are using a shared hosting platform you can request logs from the hosting provider.

How do we fix this this so it does not happen again?

A common way most people resolve the missed schedule issue is to install a plugin that attempts to republish the posts if they miss their timed posting.

Another way to resolve this issue is to setup a UNIX cron job on your hosting server to check for WP cron events that are due. If you go the UNIX cron job route you will want to disable WP Cron, which can be defined in your wp-config.php file. Here is the code needed to disable WP Cron via the wp-config.php file:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

Here are two ways you can setup the UNIX cron job to run.

If WP-CLI is enabled on the hosting server:

cd /path/to/your/wordpress; wp cron event run --due-now >/dev/null 2>&1

Example:

cd /home/cpuser/public_html; wp cron event run --due-now >/dev/null 2>&1

If WP-CLI is not installed:

wget -q -O - 'https://example.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron' >/dev/null 2>&1

Example:

wget -q -O - 'https://personablemedia.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron' >/dev/null 2>&1

When setting the cron job in the hosting server you can set the cron to run at many different intervals. We recommend anywhere between 5-15 minute intervals for best accuracy and results.

We can help you with a WordPress website that works the way you expect it to. Fill out our friendly contact form or schedule a call with us below.

1624 Market Street #202, Denver, CO 80202
and 12+ Office Locations across the Denver Metro

Next Post »
«Previous Post

Filed Under: Website Development, Hosting & SEO, Wordpress

About Justin Daniel

Sr. Analyst for GoDaddy Website Security and Website Hosting & Lead Support Technician and Solutions Engineer at Personable Media. In his free time Justin enjoys continuing to learn and master any website or hosting related coding, configuration, or automation. He is also an active gamer when time allows. Justin resides in Iowa with wife Dayna, 2 daughters, 2 cats, and 2 corgis.

Website created just for Personable Media | Websites For People | Denver, Colorado | All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Heath will call you back, shortly.

"*" indicates required fields

Shipping Address*

New Customer Intake Form

"*" indicates required fields

Leave blank if not applicable
This program includes building a new website, aligned business listings, targeted reviews, search ad account creation, paid ads and implementation.

Locations

Aurora
6105 S. Main Street, Suite 200
Aurora, Colorado 80016

Boulder
4845 Pearl East Circle, Suite 101
Boulder, Colorado 80301

Broomfield
11001 West 120th Ave, Suite 400
Broomfield, Colorado 80021

Cherry Creek
501 S. Cherry St., Suite 1100
Cherry Creek, CO 80246

Denver
1624 Market Street, Suite 202
Denver, Colorado 80202

Denver Metro North/Northglenn
11990 Grant Street, Suite 550
Northglenn, CO 80233

Fort Collins
2580 East Harmony Road, Suite 201
Fort Collins, Colorado 80528

Greenwood Village
7350 East Progress Place, Suite 100
Greenwood Village, Colorado 80111

Golden
14143 Denver West Parkway, Suite 100
Golden, Colorado 80401

Lakewood
355 S. Teller Street, Suite 200
Lakewood, Colorado 80226

Littleton
4 W. Dry Creek, Suite 100
Littleton, CO 80120

Louisville
357 S. McCaslin Blvd, Suite 200
Louisville, Colorado 80027

Lone Tree
9233 Park Meadows Drive
Lone Tree, Colorado 80124

South Hover Longmont
1079 S. Hover Street, Suite 200
Longmont, CO 80501

Schedule An Appointment

Book A Free 20m Strategy Call With Us

Pick your time on the next page.

Pick The Time For Your Call. Schedule Now ⬇️

Heath will call you back shortly.

Complete this form to send us a message. Our team monitors everything submitted through this form and we will reach back out to you promptly.

Zapier Automation Masterclass

Purchase Form

Lead Generation Quote

Get Coffee

Request A Logo Quote
Request A Website Quote
Apply For Blog Coaching