WHMCS support are the pits

[easyhostmedia]

Hi
ever since i updated to WHMCS version 7 the cron reports arrive as this

The cron has run within the last 24 hours.
To force the cron to run all operations immediately,
please invoke with the following arguments "all --force".
Perform WHMCS Update Check
Check for Updates Failed: Please ensure you have selected a valid Update Channel and then try again.

rather than as they did before updating to version 7

Cron Job Report for Tuesday 4th October 2016 @ 03:00:02

0 Invoices Created

0 Late Fees Added

1 Credit Card Payments Processed (0 Failed)

0 Unpaid Invoice Payment Reminders Sent

0 Overdue Invoice Reminders Sent

0 Domain Renewal Notices Sent

0 Cancellation Requests Processed

0 Services Suspended
- ERROR: Manual Suspension Required - Cannot perform action without accounts username -

0 Services Terminated

0 Fixed Term Terminations Processed

0 Tickets Closed for Inactivity

0 Pending Affiliate Payments Cleared

Processed Email Marketer Rules

Updated Disk & Bandwidth Usage Stats


* some info sniped *

and in my admin area under System Health Status i check systemhealthandupdates.php is says

System Cron Tasks
The system cron does not appear to have completed successfully within the last 24 hours. Check your activity logs or learn more about enabling the cron in our documentation.

and all WHMCS support can say is


Did you do the thing that I recommended in my initial inquiry?

You can prevent your Cron Daemon from emailing you by adding the following to the end of your cron command:
>/dev/null 2>&1

 

[HH-Jake]

Hey,
Did you ever find the answer to this? I am having a hell of a hard time get cron to run this every five mins.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Hey,
Did you ever find the answer to this? I am having a hell of a hard time get cron to run this every five mins.

not really, just to follow the documentation and add >/dev/null 2>&1 at the end of the command

so the documentaion states

'We recommend configuring it to be invoked every 5 minutes. If your web host does not allow you to perform crons at this level of frequency, you should configure it to run as frequently as your web hosting provider permits.'

i have highlighted the best part, as i an the web host and i want it to run as it always has and that is once a day which i told him this was the reply i got

Hello Terry,

I have never heard of a web host that only allows you to execute a cron job once every 24 hours. The most I have ever seen this limited to is at a rate of once per 15 minutes.

You are welcome to run it once a day, however that will likely have to change in the future as more things get implemented into the cron job. To run it once a day you are still going to need to go to Setup > Automation Settings and specify the hour you want all of your main processes to run. You then need to ensure that you are running your Cron Job at the during the period that you specify in your admin area.

Please note, the cron job logs when it runs through its main processes, and it will not run through them more than once a day unless you manually force them to as the notification you received explains.

Best regards,

so really they are not recommending you run the cron every 5 minutes, they are telling you to run it every 5 minutes, so they are really telling you how to run your business.

it also seems as in 7.0.0 RC1 ( last beta version) thew cron could run once a day, but they changed this in the general release

 

[SenseiSteve]

I'm not surprised at their response. Their reputation for support has slid backward lately.

 

[easyhostmedia]

I'm not surprised at their response. Their reputation for support has slid backward lately.

They seem to be under the impression that their software is 100% perfect and never has issues.

they did the same when 6 was released saying if was a major update and was rewitten removing smarty, so developers beta tested it and then when RC1 game out they used that to update their modules ready for the general release, but they WHMCS changed features in the GR that developers modules would not work, so left a lot of clients without working systems

 

[vladimir]

WHMCS has always been bad at support for me. I get faster response from posting on forums or google searching. Thank god whmcs has good community support.

 

[whmcsguru]

This is not a problem with 'WHMCS support', but with your inability to comprehend and follow instructions.
They gave you the way to fix it, and stop getting emails.

 

[Optimidia]

How so? He said he got this problem:

Perform WHMCS Update Check
Check for Updates Failed: Please ensure you have selected a valid Update Channel and then try again.

And they give him the syntax to null route emails coming from that cron? That's not solving the issue.

 

[easyhostmedia]

This is not a problem with 'WHMCS support', but with your inability to comprehend and follow instructions.
They gave you the way to fix it, and stop getting emails.

so did i change WHMCS from RC1 to GR in the way the cron works. this fix he gave does not solve the problem.

also why should they tell me how to run my business. I have always ran the cron once a day at 3am when the server is less busy.

why should i have to run this every 5 min and face upsetting my server provider or have to fork out on more memory etc. to cope with the extra load the cron takes by running every 5 minutes.

 

[zomex]

also why should they tell me how to run my business. I have always ran the cron once a day at 3am when the server is less busy.

why should i have to run this every 5 min and face upsetting my server provider or have to fork out on more memory etc. to cope with the extra load the cron takes by running every 5 minutes.

I suspect it's recommended due to new features coming in the future that may require it. We will have to wait and find out.

 

[easyhostmedia]

I suspect it's recommended due to new features coming in the future that may require it. We will have to wait and find out.

yes i wonder what.

i have a better one than that now, a client set up a paypal subscription which took the correct payment, but the recurring amount is only the 1st line of the invoice.

opened a ticket with then and they say that a recurring payment only covers the product and does not use invoice totals for a recurring payment.