WordPress: Scheduled Posts Don’t Post

by

I have had a problem with WordPress websites running from Bitnami installations where scheduled posts don’t post properly. I would wake up in the morning to find all of the posts I scheduled would say “Missed schedule” next to them in the admin console.

After doing some research, I discovered that cron hadn’t been configured on the servers. Cron is a program that runs scheduled tasks. WordPress uses cron to post scheduled posts as well as many other things, like auto-updating plugins and auto-clearing comments.

I had to enable cron. So I connected via SSH to the server and ran performed these steps:

  1. Type sudo crontab -e then press Enter.
  2. If prompted, select a location for the file. I usually chose 1 , the recommended path.
  3. If an editor opens, save the file by selecting CTRL + O, then pressing Enter.
  4. Exit the editor by pressing CTRL + X.

Now cron jobs will work and scheduled posts should start working.

If you’re not comfortable or can’t connect to your server via SSH, you can use a plugin called WP Control to take over cron functions on your site.

Leave a Comment