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What is a cron job?

A cron job is a process scheduled to run automatically at regular intervals, without human intervention.

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What it's used for on an online shop

Many operations on a shop benefit from automation: sending abandoned-cart reminder emails, syncing stock with a supplier, generating the XML sitemap, updating exchange rates, or cleaning up temporary data. On standard Unix hosting, these tasks are scheduled through the system's crontab, which triggers a script or a URL at fixed times.

WordPress's quirk

WordPress has its own pseudo-cron, the wp-cron.php file, which doesn't fire at a fixed time but only when a visitor loads a page on the site. On a low-traffic shop, this can delay, or even prevent, scheduled tasks from running. The recommended fix is to disable this pseudo-cron and replace it with a real system cron that calls wp-cron.php at regular intervals.

Frequently asked questions

Is WordPress's cron a real system cron?
No, by default it's a pseudo-cron triggered by site visits, not a scheduled task run by the server's operating system at a fixed time.
Why doesn't a scheduled task run at the expected time on WordPress?
Most often because the site gets too little traffic to trigger the pseudo-cron at the expected moment, which delays the task.
How do you set up a real system cron for WordPress?
By disabling the built-in pseudo-cron and configuring, on the hosting side, a system task that calls wp-cron.php at regular intervals, independently of site traffic.

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