Cron Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

LicenceForge registers four WP-Cron events during plugin activation. These scheduled tasks handle license expiration, data cleanup, email notifications, and webhook retries. All background work depends on WP-Cron executing reliably.

Scheduled Events Overview

The following table summarizes every cron event registered by LicenceForge.

Daily Maintenance Tasks

The wplf_daily_maintenance event calls WPLF_Maintenance::run_daily_tasks(), which executes the following sub-tasks in order. Each sub-task runs independently -- a failure in one does not prevent the others from executing.

expire_old_licenses()

Scans for licenses whose expiration date plus the configured grace period (wplf_grace_period_days) has passed. Matching licenses are transitioned from active to expired status. The grace period defaults to 3 days but is configurable in Licences > Settings.

cleanup_old_audit_logs()

Deletes audit log entries older than the configured retention period. The retention period is controlled by the wplf_audit_retention_days option, which defaults to 90 days. See Data Retention for configuration details.

cleanup_old_webhook_events()

Deletes webhook event records older than 30 days from the wplf_webhook_events table. This retention period is hardcoded and not configurable.

cleanup_old_analytics()

Deletes analytics records older than 365 days from the wplf_analytics table. This retention period is hardcoded. The weekly wplf_cleanup_analytics event performs an additional cleanup pass as a safety net.

auto_deactivate_expired()

Deactivates all site activations associated with licenses that have an expired or cancelled status. This task only runs when the wplf_auto_deactivate option is set to true (the default).

When auto-deactivation fires, each affected activation is removed from the wplf_activations table and an entry is written to the audit log.

check_health_alerts()

Runs the full suite of health checks. If any check returns a warning or error status and health alerts are enabled, an alert email is sent to the configured address. See Health Alerts for setup instructions.

Expiring License Notifications

The wplf_check_expiring_licenses event queries for active licenses whose expiration date falls within the next 7 days. For each match, it sends a notification email to the license holder using the configured email template.

Webhook Retry Processing

The wplf_webhook_retry event runs every 5 minutes and processes up to 10 failed webhook events per execution. Events are retried with exponential backoff until they either succeed or exceed the maximum retry count. Events that exceed MAX_RETRIES are marked as permanently failed and no longer retried.

Permanently failed events remain in the database for 30 days (subject to the webhook event cleanup) and are flagged in the health checks.

Manual Execution

You can trigger all daily maintenance tasks on demand without waiting for WP-Cron.

Via the Admin Panel

Navigate to Licences > Settings and click the Run Maintenance Tasks button. This immediately calls WPLF_Maintenance::run_daily_tasks() and displays the results.

Via WP-CLI

Run the maintenance cron event directly from the command line:

wp cron event run wplf_daily_maintenance

To run all LicenceForge cron events at once:

wp cron event run wplf_daily_maintenance
wp cron event run wplf_check_expiring_licenses
wp cron event run wplf_cleanup_analytics
wp cron event run wplf_webhook_retry

Tracking the Last Run

Each time WPLF_Maintenance::run_daily_tasks() completes, the current Unix timestamp is saved to the wplf_last_maintenance_run option. This value is used by:

• The cron health check to detect stale maintenance runs
• The admin dashboard to display when maintenance last executed

You can inspect this value via WP-CLI:

wp option get wplf_last_maintenance_run

Replacing WP-Cron with a Server Cron

For production sites, replace the default WP-Cron behavior with a real server-side cron job. This ensures tasks run on schedule regardless of site traffic.

Step 1: Disable WP-Cron Triggering on Page Load

Add the following line to your wp-config.php file:

define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true );

Step 2: Add a System Cron Job

Open your crontab and add an entry that calls wp-cron.php at regular intervals. Every 5 minutes is recommended to match the webhook retry schedule:

crontab -e

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

Alternatively, use WP-CLI if it is available on your server:

*/5 * * * * cd /path/to/wordpress && wp cron event run --due-now > /dev/null 2>&1

Troubleshooting

Tasks Not Running

If scheduled tasks are not executing, check the following:

1. Verify the cron events are registered:

   wp cron event list --fields=hook,next_run_relative | grep wplf

2. Confirm DISABLE_WP_CRON is not set to true without a server cron replacement.
3. Check that no caching plugin is interfering with wp-cron.php requests.
4. Ensure your hosting provider does not restrict outgoing HTTP requests to wp-cron.php.

Re-registering Cron Events

If cron events are missing (for example, after a database migration), deactivate and reactivate LicenceForge. This re-registers all four scheduled events without affecting your data or settings.

Related Pages

• Health Checks -- System health monitoring and alerting
• Data Retention -- Configurable retention periods for logs and analytics
• Email Configuration -- Email notification settings and templates
• Installation -- Initial plugin setup and activation