Why WordPress scheduled tasks stop running and how to diagnose WP-Cron
Scheduled WordPress jobs can silently stall because WP-Cron only checks for due events when a page is requested and then sends a loopback request to wp-cron.php. Administrators can compare each event's next run time, reported in UTC, against the current UTC time to spot overdue jobs, and check for missing events that were never scheduled. A stuck doing_cron lock can block runs for a time, so it should be inspected before being cleared. Disabling WP-Cron requires a system cron entry to be in place, and a loopback request failing due to authentication, security rules, or host configuration can quietly halt everything. The article recommends a locked system crontab entry running as the site user, with a five-minute interval as a sensible default.
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