Sending stops, suspected cronjob/config problem - desperate :(

ℹ️ Support
1

Hello all,
Recently I keep having issues with PHPLIST on my Bluehost account.
I am using PHPLIST ver 2.10.17. Shared Server, PHP version 5.2.17.
Latest thing is that a batch of messages is sent, then stops. If I click “process queue” on the browser,
sending is resumed and then stopped after some dozen emails again.

This is strange because I have a cron job defined, which has been working fine for a long time.
This is the configured cron job:
wget -q -O - ‘http://www.guyshachar.com/lists/admin/index.php?page=processqueue&login=XXX&password=YYY’ >/dev/null

Since I suspected that this is the problem now, I configured additional cron jobs based on suggestions I found in forums, but it didn’t help…

This is another one I added:

/usr/local/php5/bin/php5 -q /home/guyshach/public_html/lists/admin/index.php -p processqueue -c /home/guyshach/public_html/lists/config/config.php > /home/guyshach/public_html/lists/processqueue.log 2>&1

and another one:

php -q /home1/guyshach/public_html/lists/admin/index.php -p processqueue -c /home1/guyshach/public_html/phplist/config/config.php >/dev/null

I tried the path with “home1” because bluehost cPanel indicated that home directory is /home1/guyshach
It also didn’t work when I tried /home/guyshach.

Where did I go wrong…?

Thanks!

2

The wget output will probably show what is happening but you are discarding it. Save it to a file instead.

3

thanks, how do I do that…?

4

@guysh replace

>/dev/null

by a path to somewhere you want the log file to be saved

> /home1/guyshach/wget.log

assuming that /home1 is correct, and not /home.

5

great, will try that, thanks

6

No file is written… not with “home” and not with “home1”…
How can I be sure that the cron job actually runs…?

7

Try adding this to the end of the command to capture any errors from wget. They should get added to the same log file.

2>&1

If you are using cpanel then you can see what your home directory is through the File Manager. On the left side it should have the path to the home directory

8

thanks again, will try :slight_smile:

9

I found the problem!

  • First, in order to debug, I used a bluehost option that cron job sends an email every time it runs.
  • I got emails, so understood that they actually run.
  • The email stated syntax errors in the cron job command.
  • Apparently the command seemed truncated - from the “%” character that was in the admin password…!
  • I changed the password so it does not include “%” and now the cron job works!
    Thanks for your help,
    Guy
10

Of course I should have suspected that earlier, as the problem started after I changed the password. But for someone who is not working in development regularly, a problematic character such as “%” is not an immediate option…