Why nodes aren't always deleted on cron?

Question

I have this code in my module_cron function (I need to delete old unpublished nodes).

include_once './modules/node/node.module';
$nids = db_query("SELECT nid FROM node where status = 0 AND UNIX_TIMESTAMP()-changed>172800 LIMIT 2000");
while ($result = db_fetch_object($nids)) {

  echo  "Deleting node ".$result->nid."<br>";
  node_delete($result->nid);    
}

It always outputs node ids, but it rarely actually deletes nodes. In fact it seems to totally stop deleting them until I login to admin panel. What am I doing wrong? Is there any way to always delete nodes?

Answer 1

Check this "Running cron as an authenticated user" in http://drupal.org/node/23714 it might be useful for you.

Answer 2

Here's one solution:

  include_once './modules/node/node.module';                         
  $nids = db_query("SELECT nid FROM node where status = 0 AND UNIX_TIMESTAMP()-changed>172800 LIMIT 2000");    
  global $user;
  $orig_uid = $user->uid;
  $user->uid = 1;    
  while ($result = db_fetch_object($nids)) {

      echo  "Deleting node ".$result->nid."<br>";
      node_delete($result->nid);    
  }
  $user->uid = $orig_uid;

Answer 3

There might be the issue with the permissions. Please check the permissions of deleting the desired content type's content as cron might be running as anonymous user.