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Reliable wp-cron Monitoring at Scale

Monitor wp-cron across single sites or hundreds of WordPress installations with the Saturn plugin.

Why Monitor wp-cron?​

WordPress's wp-cron is notoriously unreliable:

  • Visitor-dependent: Only runs when someone visits your site
  • Race conditions: Multiple simultaneous executions
  • Silent failures: No built-in alerting when tasks fail
  • Performance impact: Can slow down page loads

Saturn provides visibility and reliability for wp-cron at any scale.

Single Site Installation​

Prerequisites​

  • WordPress 5.8 or higher
  • PHP 7.4 or higher
  • A Saturn organization token

Step 1: Install Plugin​

Option A: WordPress Admin (Recommended)

  1. Go to Plugins → Add New
  2. Search for "Saturn Watchdog"
  3. Click Install Now
  4. Click Activate

Option B: Manual Upload

  1. Download saturn-watchdog.zip from WordPress.org
  2. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
  3. Choose the ZIP file and click Install Now
  4. Click Activate

Step 2: Configure Token​

  1. Go to Settings → Saturn Watchdog
  2. Enter your Organization Token (from Saturn dashboard)
  3. Click Save Settings
  4. Click Test Connection to verify

Step 3: View Health Dashboard​

The plugin adds a Saturn Health widget to your admin dashboard showing:

  • Active cron events being monitored
  • Last execution times
  • Health status (A-F grade)
  • Recent incidents
What gets monitored?

By default, Saturn monitors all recurring wp-cron events. You can exclude specific events in settings.

Bulk Agency Rollout​

For agencies managing 50-500+ WordPress sites, automate the deployment.

Prerequisites​

  • WP-CLI installed
  • SSH/SFTP access to all sites
  • Same Saturn org token for all sites

Rollout Strategy​

1. Install Plugin via WP-CLI​

#!/bin/bash
# deploy-saturn.sh

SITES=(
  "example1.com"
  "example2.com"
  "example3.com"
  # ... add all your sites
)

ORG_TOKEN="YOUR_ORG_TOKEN"

for site in "${SITES[@]}"; do
  echo "Deploying to $site..."
  
  # Install plugin
  wp plugin install saturn-watchdog --activate --path="/var/www/$site"
  
  # Configure token
  wp option update saturn_org_token "YOUR_ORG_TOKEN" --path="/var/www/$site"
  
  # Test connection
  wp saturn test --path="/var/www/$site"
  
  echo "✓ $site complete"
done

2. Using MainWP / ManageWP​

If you use a management dashboard:

  1. MainWP: Install extension from MainWP marketplace
  2. ManageWP: Add to favorites, bulk install
  3. Configure token in Global Settings
  4. Apply to all sites with one click

3. Docker/Composer for New Sites​

Add to your WordPress deployment:

composer.json
{
  "require": {
    "wpackagist-plugin/saturn-watchdog": "^1.0"
  }
}

Set token via environment variable:

SATURN_ORG_TOKEN=YOUR_ORG_TOKEN

Verification Script​

#!/bin/bash
# verify-saturn.sh

for site in "${SITES[@]}"; do
  STATUS=$(wp option get saturn_connection_status --path="/var/www/$site")
  
  if [ "$STATUS" == "connected" ]; then
    echo "✓ $site: Connected"
  else
    echo "✗ $site: Not connected - check logs"
  fi
done

Settings Reference​

Navigate to Settings → Saturn Watchdog:

SettingDescriptionDefault
Organization TokenYour Saturn org token(required)
Monitor All EventsAuto-monitor all recurring cron eventstrue
Excluded EventsComma-separated list of hooks to ignore(empty)
Report IntervalHow often to ping Saturn5 minutes
Capture OutputInclude task output in pingsfalse
Max Output SizeOutput size limit in KB10

Health Dashboard Widgets​

After installation, your admin dashboard shows:

Cron Events Widget​

  • List of all monitored events
  • Last run time
  • Next scheduled run
  • Current status (✓ Healthy, ⚠ Warning, ✗ Critical)

Health Score Widget​

  • Overall site health (0-100)
  • Grade (A-F)
  • 7-day uptime percentage
  • Recent incidents count

Troubleshooting​

Events Not Running​

Problem: wp-cron events never trigger

Solution: Disable WordPress pseudo-cron and use real cron:

wp-config.php
define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

Then add to system crontab:

*/5 * * * * wget -q -O - https://example.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron > /dev/null 2>&1

Or with WP-CLI:

*/5 * * * * cd /var/www/example.com && wp cron event run --due-now > /dev/null 2>&1

Connection Fails​

Problem: "Connection test failed"

Checklist:

  • Token is correct (copy-paste from dashboard)
  • Outbound HTTPS allowed (firewall/hosting provider)
  • No PHP disable_functions blocking curl or file_get_contents
  • WordPress site can reach api.saturn.example.com

Test manually:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ORG_TOKEN" https://api.saturn.example.com/api/health

High Memory Usage​

Problem: Plugin causes memory issues

Solution: Disable output capture for large sites:

wp-config.php
define('SATURN_CAPTURE_OUTPUT', false);

SLA Reporting​

For agencies with SLA commitments:

  1. Go to Saturn dashboard
  2. Filter by tag (e.g., client:acme)
  3. Export 30-day SLA report (PDF/CSV)
  4. Send to client

Reports include:

  • Uptime percentage
  • Incident count and types
  • MTTR (mean time to repair)
  • Health score trend

Next Steps​

You should now see your first healthy monitor within 10 minutes.

Learn more: