"Cron PHP Version Mismatch" & "The system cron does not appear to have completed successfully within the last 24 hours"

[jackshreeve]

Hi,

I had an issue with my Cron not running. I thought I'd post the fix here to help others.

I had these errors: "The system Cron does not appear to have completed successfully within the last 24 hours"

"Cron PHP Version Mismatch "

My automation tasks were not running and I was not receiving a cron email.

Firstly, I changed the permissions of cron.php to 755 - "/home/site-path/public_html/our-install/crons /cron .php"

Secondly, to fix the Cron PHP Version Mismatch error I added the path to the version of PHP I was using to the cron task:

/opt/cpanel/ea-php73/root/usr/bin/php -q /home/PATH/TO/crons/cron.php 

Replace "ea-php73" with the version of PHP your site is using.

You can find the exact cron task to use with the path to your version of PHP in WHMCS settings in this menu:  Setup - Automation Settings

Finally, I checked for any php.ini (or other ini files e.g. user.ini) and changed the version of PHP written there to "ea-php73"

e.g.

session.save_path = "/var/cpanel/php/sessions/ea-php73"

My Cron job now runs correctly, the automation features of WHMCS run correctly and I have no warnings or errors in System Health.

I hope this helps others as I had to spend a lot of time troubleshooting this since I had to wait until 9am each morning for the Cron to run  to debug. Many of the topics on the community do not specify that you have to add the path to php to the cron, which confused me.

Thanks to my web hosts and WHMCS support for their help.

Jack

Edited March 10, 2020 by jackshreeve
Added info about where to find the correct cron command in WHMCS settings

[zomex]

Great job on resolving your issue. I've seen many users experienced the same so I will refer them to this post from now on.

 

[zitu4life]

Would also need to say, move cron to non public_html directory as you are changing that permissions to 755 currently on your public_html

https://docs.whmcs.com/Further_Security_Steps#Move_the_Crons_Directory

[slim]

Thanks for this. For those using Cloudlinux and PHP selector, use the following:

/opt/alt/phpxx/usr/bin/php -q /home/PATH/TO/crons/cron.php

Where xx is your desired php version.