Mark

Okay done. Gonna need a trusted email address to send the log to, too big and too detailed to share here.

Scouting for error logs elsewhere, I do find this apache log (IP and domain obscured):

[Fri Apr 17 18:15:18.385910 2026] [error] [pid 508939] mod_authz_core.c(879): [client IP:0] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /data/sites/web/mydomain/www/wp-content/plugins/matomo/app/config/global.ini.php

Others reporting this are running into issues that I don’t see (e.g. being locked out of wp-admin) so I don’t think it’s relevant but it’s the only error I can find anywhere.

Two more days of debug logging, nothing appears in the log unless I trigger wp-cron manually or execute the archive reports task manually.

I have now commented out the line I was advised to add to wp-config.php just to see whether that makes a difference. That means we’re back to square one as in my previous thread: matomo is complaining that “Warning: Your WordPress site does not appear to have a system cron job set up to run the WordPress cron. Matomo uses the WordPress cron to generate reports and to delete temporary data to provide compliance with various privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR).”

I will wait for a day to see what this gives in the debug logs, and whether Matomo does in fact work despite its complaint.

Switching on logging yesterday. Manually archived (first line). Updated Matomo to 5.8.1. Triggered system cron. Debug log now says (changing my domain to mydomain.org):

[13-Apr-2026 08:55:08 UTC] Matomo: Scheduled tasks archive data
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:02 UTC] Matomo: Changed global option version_history: ["5.8.1","5.8.0","5.7.1","5.7.0"]
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:02 UTC] Matomo: Save settings
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:02 UTC] Matomo: Apply tracking code changes:
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:02 UTC] Matomo: Finished tracking code: <!-- Matomo --><script>
(function () {
function initTracking() {
var _paq = window._paq = window._paq || [];
_paq.push(['trackPageView']);_paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']);_paq.push(['alwaysUseSendBeacon']);_paq.push(['setTrackerUrl', "\/\/mydomain.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/matomo\/app\/matomo.php"]);_paq.push(['setSiteId', '1']);var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
g.type='text/javascript'; g.async=true; g.src="\/\/mydomain.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/matomo\/matomo.js"; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s);
}
if (document.prerendering) {
	document.addEventListener('prerenderingchange', initTracking, {once: true});
} else {
	initTracking();
}
})();
</script>
<!-- End Matomo Code -->
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:02 UTC] Matomo: Finished noscript code: <noscript><p><img referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" src="//mydomain.org/wp-content/plugins/matomo/app/matomo.php?idsite=1&amp;rec=1" style="border:0;" alt="" /></p></noscript>
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:02 UTC] Matomo: Changed option last_tracking_code_update: 1776153782
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:02 UTC] Matomo: Save settings
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:02 UTC] Matomo: Scheduled tasks archive data
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:04 UTC] Matomo: Scheduled tasks sync all sites and users
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:04 UTC] Matomo: Matomo is now syncing blogId 1
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:04 UTC] Matomo: Matomo site is known for blog (1)... will update
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:04 UTC] Matomo: Matomo will now sync 2 users
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:05 UTC] Automatic updates starting...
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:05 UTC]   Automatic plugin updates starting...
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:05 UTC]   Automatic plugin updates complete.
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:05 UTC] Automatic updates complete.
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:06 UTC] Matomo: Scheduled tasks perform update
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:06 UTC] Matomo: No settings changed yet
[14-Apr-2026 08:03:09 UTC] Matomo: Scheduled tasks update geoip database

So, in the 22 hours since start of logging, no hourly entries of cron tasks.

I am triggering the cron manually by going to mydomain.org/wp-cron.php . But obviously I want this to run automatically.

Doing this now (thanks for your patience).

Here is an error that appears atop the Matomo admin pages in WP Dashboard:

 Deprecated: Matomo\Dependencies\Less_Functions::__construct(): Implicitly marking parameter $currentFileInfo as nullable is deprecated, the explicit nullable type must be used instead in [my domain]/wp-content/plugins/matomo/app/vendor/prefixed/wikimedia/less.php/lib/Less/Functions.php on line 13

And the debug.log says this:

[24-Mar-2026 10:37:53 UTC] Automatic updates starting...
[24-Mar-2026 10:37:53 UTC] Automatic updates complete.
[24-Mar-2026 10:37:53 UTC] Matomo: Scheduled tasks sync all sites and users
[24-Mar-2026 10:37:53 UTC] Matomo: Matomo is now syncing blogId 1
[24-Mar-2026 10:37:53 UTC] Matomo: Matomo site is known for blog (1)... will update
[24-Mar-2026 10:37:53 UTC] Matomo: Matomo will now sync 2 users
[24-Mar-2026 10:37:56 UTC] Matomo: Scheduled tasks perform update
[24-Mar-2026 10:37:56 UTC] Matomo: No settings changed yet
[24-Mar-2026 10:39:02 UTC] PHP Deprecated:  Matomo\Dependencies\Less_Functions::__construct(): Implicitly marking parameter $currentFileInfo as nullable is deprecated, the explicit nullable type must be used instead in /[my domain]/wp-content/plugins/matomo/app/vendor/prefixed/wikimedia/less.php/lib/Less/Functions.php on line 13

Manually running the archiving works, but the automated archiving doesn’t seem to.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by Mark.

Well, let me get this straight. ActivityPub offers a “Post content” setting, where I have the following:

<p><strong>[ap_title]</strong></p>

[ap_excerpt length=1600]

<p>[ap_permalink type="html"]</p>

I also have max 1 Media attachment (which will typically be the Featured Image).

So this is the sum total of info that I am assuming is pushed to the Fediverse. So the issue of how to determine what changed is narrowed down, in my use case, to the question: did anything in those 3 fields (4 including the featured image) change? If not (and it never is in the edits I most frequently make), then that doesn’t qualify as an edit to the fediverse post generated according to this template.

What would it take to do a diff to determine whether this is the case? I ask this not knowing the plugin architecture and not knowing the format of the info made available by AP to different fediverse clients, so please bear with my ignorance. But the issue happens often enough to make me not want to federate posts at all for fear of generating a notification torrent.

OMG sorry for being dense, but I really found it hard to wrap my head around the fact that to get rid of a Matomo error message about how my system “does not appear to have a system cron job set up”, I had to go into said system and tell it to “disable WP_CRON” in my wp-config. It feels totally counterintuitive although reading back I see that you did say that and point to the WP developer docs first time around.

Suggestion to rephrase that wordy Matomo message to directly mention the relevant wp-config.php command and explain this does NOT mean you’re disabling all cron jobs, it just means you’re stopping WP from executing them at every page load. And perhaps add something to this effect to the Matomo documentation.

Thank you for your time, it appears it is solved indeed!

No, wp-config does not have any line about WP_CRON. In response to your post I just tried *adding* that and and setting it to false but that didn’t make a difference either.

Full error message:

Closure in wp-content/plugins/matomo/classes/WpMatomo/ScheduledTasks.php at line 99
WpMatomo\ScheduledTasks->archive()
Closure in wp-content/plugins/matomo/classes/WpMatomo/ScheduledTasks.php at line 112