Problems spawning a call to the WP-Cron system
If you’re seeing an error message saying there was a problem spawning a call to the WP-Cron system on your site, this indicates a problem that is preventing cron events from running. If you can see cron events that have missed their schedule by more than a few minutes, this is almost certainly a problem you need to investigate.
What should I do?
Firstly, please do not open a support thread on the WP Crontrol plugin forum as nobody will be able to assist you there. There are better ways to get support for this problem.
- Reload the page a few times to determine if the error is persistent. If the error only appears once then it may have been a temporary network connectivity problem.
- If the error persists, make a note of the error message. Common errors are listed below with more information about what they mean.
- Try deactivating the other plugins on your site one by one. It could be that one of them is causing a problem. Bear in mind mu-plugins and network-active plugins too.
- If your website is hosted on a managed WordPress service, contact your web host and send them the error message. They are best positioned to assist you and they’ve probably seen the same problem before.
- If you’re not using a managed WordPress hosting service, try searching for the error message using your favourite search engine or on the support forums of your web host.
- If you cannot diagnose the problem, post the error message in a new thread on the main wordpress.org support forums where hopefully a volunteer can assist you.
Common errors
cURL error 6: Could not resolve domain
This means there is a problem with the DNS configuration of your domain or your server. The domain name is not pointing to a valid IP address, or your server does not have up to date DNS information.
cURL error 7: Failed to connect: Connection refused
This is a generic connection error. It could relate to your HTTPS configuration, a firewall configuration, an access restriction problem (see below), or a temporary network connectivity problem.
cURL error 28: Operation timed out after 3000 milliseconds with 0 bytes received
This means there is a network connectivity problem preventing your server from performing “loopback” requests to itself.
cURL error 35: sslv3 alert handshake failure
This means there’s a problem with your HTTPS configuration. Your server cannot securely connect to itself.
Unexpected HTTP response code: 401 or 403
This means an access control restriction such as BasicAuth, a firewall, a security or privacy plugin, some form of password protection, or an .htaccess rule is preventing your server from accessing wp-cron.php.
Unexpected HTTP response code: 404
This means the wp-cron.php file in the root of your website has been deleted. Try reinstalling WordPress from the Dashboard → Updates screen.
Unexpected HTTP response code: 500 or higher
This means an error has occurred on your server which is preventing the cron spawner from running. Check the error logs on your server.