Short answer
WP-Cron is WordPress’s own scheduler, and it only runs when somebody visits the site. On a quiet site nothing triggers it, so scheduled posts and backups are late or never run.
The fix is to turn off the visitor-triggered version and call it from a real cron job instead, which runs on a fixed schedule whether or not anyone is visiting.
Learn more
- WP-Cron: replacing it with a real cron jobHow WordPress’s built-in scheduler works, why scheduled tasks can run late on quiet sites, and how to run WP-Cron from a DirectAdmin cron job.
- How to create a cron job in DirectAdminSchedule scripts and commands to run automatically with DirectAdmin cron jobs: the schedule fields, the command line, and handling output.
- Running PHP scripts from cron: paths, output and common mistakesWrite PHP scripts that run reliably from cron: the PHP binary path, working directory, includes, time limits, locking and logging.
Step-by-step
- Schedule a task with a cron jobIntermediate · 20 min · 8 steps
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