Elysia cron stuck in (w) state (wating to be executed)

Question

I have a few crons set up to run every 15 min. My system cron is set to execute every 5 mins. However one cron keeps getting stuck in the (w) state. I updated its setting to run every minute (* * * *) and still every time the cron run all jobs get executed except for one homepage_extensions_cron (w) - [run] * * * * * 09/06/2013 - 15:14 7s 4 3s / 7s This is really troubling me.

When I run the cron manually ( replicating what the system is doing) the cron runs fine. I do it through curl. When I execute the curl through command line, the task runs. I am suspecting there is some timing tricky stuff here. Can someone please explain how this work? Also, I am trying to clear a certain cache id in the cron task and do an http request. Could this cause an issue?

Answer 1

The "(w)" flag means only that the job is ready to be executed (waiting for the system crontab to start and execute it).

If a job has a rule like "* * * * *" (= execute it EVERY minute), it's quite normal that the "(w)" is always on.

If you use a rule like "* * * * *", assure that system crontab is set to "* * * * *" too. That way you minimize the (w), because system crontab runs every minute too and executes the job as fast as possible.

(However, a little time with (w) is normal and not to be considered a problem).

Answer 2

Ok, the problem was not with elysia cron but rather with our over-engineered system. The cron runs on a different box that did not have the uptodate code. Therefore, when I visited the UI, I was able to see the cron because I am connected to a certain box the load balance designates (again some over-engineered stuff). We synced the code using cfenging and now the cron is recognized and runs.