Title: wp-cron.php issue
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# wp-cron.php issue

 *  [AdrianMoss](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adrianmoss/)
 * (@adrianmoss)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/)
 * I recently upgraded to wordpress 2.6.2 and now much of the time when I make a
   new post or edit a post my website errors out and is replaced by the [following message](http://box170.bluehost.com/highload.html)
 * I talked to my host company (BlueHost) and they pointed me to the tmp folder 
   and to the logs. It looks like the wp-cron.php is whats causing the problem.
 * I have no idea what wp-cron.php is and what I need to do to fix the problem. 
   Anyone help?

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

 *  Moderator [Samuel Wood (Otto)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/otto42/)
 * (@otto42)
 * WordPress.org Admin
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864363)
 * wp-cron php is not the problem. That’s just what BlueHost likes to blame for 
   their own inability to keep their servers running properly.
 * I’d switch hosts.
 *  Thread Starter [AdrianMoss](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adrianmoss/)
 * (@adrianmoss)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864366)
 * But the more research I do the more I see people having issues w/ this wp-cron
   so there must be something to it…?
 *  Thread Starter [AdrianMoss](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adrianmoss/)
 * (@adrianmoss)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864371)
 * Also it occurs almost every single time I create a new post or edit an old post
 *  Moderator [Samuel Wood (Otto)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/otto42/)
 * (@otto42)
 * WordPress.org Admin
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864406)
 * The problems people have with wp-cron are not related to load. They’re related
   to making it work properly in the first place. Some servers don’t like the way
   wp-cron is invoked asynchronously. This is usually due to poor server or DNS 
   configuration.
 * And every time you create or edit a post, a new wp-cron job is created to make
   it attempt to do pingbacks and trackbacks.
 * If your server cannot connect to itself, then wp-cron will not work and you’ll
   get a lot of attempts by your site to hit wp-cron, which will all fail. This 
   doesn’t cause load issues, but it does mean that pingbacks/trackbacks don’t work,
   future posts don’t post, etc.
 * Tell BlueHost to fix their servers so that the site can connect to itself to 
   invoke the wp-cron process, and then it will run properly and the problem will
   go away. Also tell them that if they have a firewall which prevents your site
   from contacting other sites (for, say, pingbacks), then they need to turn it 
   off or allow it to go through or something like that.
 * You can also disable pingbacks yourself temporarily, if you like. Look in the
   settings for “Attempt to ping links in the post content” or something to that
   effect, I don’t recall the exact wording.
 *  Thread Starter [AdrianMoss](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adrianmoss/)
 * (@adrianmoss)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864438)
 * Thanks for your help Otto. Do you have any recommendations in terms of hosts 
   where I would not run into this issue? I can try calling bluehost and telling
   them to fix their servers but I’m guessing their going to tell me to go jump 
   off of a cliff
 *  [mikejs78](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mikejs78/)
 * (@mikejs78)
 * [17 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864511)
 * I am having the same issue with hostICan. I think that if multiple hosts are 
   having this issue, it may be a wordpress problem.
 *  [bernardborealis](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bernardborealis/)
 * (@bernardborealis)
 * [17 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864517)
 * Try this topic: [http://wordpress.org/support/topic/103659?replies=19#post-532749](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/103659?replies=19#post-532749)
 * Hopefully that will help you. It’s a bit old, but it still holds relevancy as
   far as I am aware.
 *  [daveatkins](https://wordpress.org/support/users/daveatkins/)
 * (@daveatkins)
 * [17 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864576)
 * Otto,
    Can you tell those of us who are self-hosting exactly what we need to 
   do to make wp-cron work? I have the scheduled posts failing to appear problem;
   I have to go in manually and change the status from scheduled to published to
   make them appear. I do not see any error messages in the apache logs related 
   to wp-cron.
 * You mention DNS configuration above. Is it necessary that the local server resolve
   and be able to connect to the “WordPress Address (URL)”?
 * How does wp-cron work? Does it use the “WordPress Address (URL” from the general
   settings page to construct a local connection to the site?
 *  Moderator [Samuel Wood (Otto)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/otto42/)
 * (@otto42)
 * WordPress.org Admin
 * [17 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864577)
 * > _You mention DNS configuration above. Is it necessary that the local server
   > resolve and be able to connect to the “WordPress Address (URL)”?_
 * Yes, it is.
 * > _How does wp-cron work? Does it use the “WordPress Address (URL” from the general
   > settings page to construct a local connection to the site?_
 * Yes, that’s basically exactly how it works. It tries to open a port 80 connection
   back to its own canonical URL with /wp-cron.php appended to it, in order to invoke
   the wp-cron process. Or port 443 for https, of course.
 * If a server cannot do that, then the server is configured wrong, or there’s a
   firewall in the way, etc, etc. SELinux has also been known to interfere with 
   this from time to time. You need to configure the server so that this is allowed.
   I don’t know why some servers think that this is somehow more secure or something,
   but it is not a security hole, so eliminate that overprotective part of the security.
 *  [daveatkins](https://wordpress.org/support/users/daveatkins/)
 * (@daveatkins)
 * [17 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864578)
 * Thanks…I figured this out and posted my solution to
    [http://wordpress.org/support/topic/165238/page/3?replies=80#post-898872](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/165238/page/3?replies=80#post-898872)
 * I edited the hosts file so that the url would resolve to the local address of
   the server.
 * In our environment, our other webservers are not aware of their hostnames because
   we have staging, development, production, etc. servers that are all identical
   configurations. We do not run an internal DNS in the production network, so if
   you are on a local server and try to hit the public hostname, it goes for the
   public ip address which cannot route back through the router.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

The topic ‘wp-cron.php issue’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 10 replies
 * 5 participants
 * Last reply from: [daveatkins](https://wordpress.org/support/users/daveatkins/)
 * Last activity: [17 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-cronphp-issue/#post-864578)
 * Status: not resolved

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