WP-Cron stops running silently and the cause is almost always a stuck lock, a blocked loopback request, or DISABLE_WP_CRON set without a server cron replacement. This guide covers the full diagnostic flow with WP-CLI, _get_cron_array(), WP_CRON_LOCK_TIMEOUT, object cache conflicts, and real cron setup.
WordPress cron jobs are widely misused: events registered on every page load, no race condition protection, long-running tasks blocking the main process, and missing server cron configuration. This guide shows the exact mistakes developers make and how to fix each one with working code examples.
