Cron not working, ionCube error

[pacificsky]

I'm getting the following (email response) error when I try to run the automated cron:

 

Site error: the <a href="http://www.ioncube.com">ionCube</a> PHP Loader needs to be installed. This is a widely used PHP extension for running ionCube protected PHP code, website security and malware blocking.

 

Please visit <a href="http://get-loader.ioncube.com">get-loader.ioncube.com</a> for install assistance.

 

My web host confirmed that my ionCube Loader was properly installed.

PHP 5.6.29 (cli) (built: Jan 11 2017 17:04:20)
Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies
   with the ionCube PHP Loader (enabled) + Intrusion Protection from ioncube24.com (unconfigured) v5.1.1, Copyright (c) 2002-2016, by ionCube Ltd.

 

They thought there might be an error with the /crons/cron.php file, though it is "ioncube encoded" so they were unable to view the code.

 

This is the command I'm running in my cron:

*/5 * * * * php -q /home/[account]/[folder]/crons/cron.php

 

When i run this in the command line it works just fine:

php -q /home/[account]/[folder]/crons/cron.php

 

I am running a VPS on LiquidWeb server and my WHMCS is version 7.1.1.

 

I read threads where people added "/opt/php56/bin/php" to the cron job, but I don't have /php56/ in my /opt/ folder.

 

Thank you in advance for your help.

Edited January 12, 2017 by pacificsky

[EduPerea737]

I have a similar error:

 

<br />

<b>Fatal error</b>: The file /home/account/public_html/clientes/folder/cron.php cannot be decoded by this version of the ionCube Loader.

If you are the administrator of this site then please install the latest version of the ionCube Loader.

in <b>Unknown</b> on line <b>0</b><br />

 

My hosting provider says they can't update it because my account is a shared account.

[twhiting9275]

These are two separate issues.

 

@Eduardo, you'll need to change your hosting provider, they're stuck on really old ioncube versions

 

@Pacificsky, this typically happens on Debian/Ubuntu servers. Assuming that you've installed ioncube on the server itself, you likely don't have the ioncube configuration copied over to the correct directory). In Debian/Ubuntu, the php apache and CLI configs are stored separately. Copy the ioncube.ini file from /etc/php5/apache(2) to /etc/php5/cli

[pacificsky]

Found the issue.

Had to update the php path in the cron job to:

[b]/usr/local/bin/php[/b] -q -f /home/[account]/[folder}/crons/cron.php

 

I'm assuming this is going to be different for every web host. But I hope this helps someone else.

[twhiting9275]

so, you have different versions of php installed it looks like.

Great to see you got this sorted out