Cron Manager

See and control Magento's cron from the admin: every job with its schedule and run statistics, the cron schedule as a grid and as a timeline, Run Now, enable, disable and reschedule jobs, clean up the queue, and get warned when cron stops or a job keeps failing. This guide covers installation, configuration and day-to-day use.

• Admin demo: https://demo.softawarecommerce.com/try-admin/cron-manager
• Changelog: Release notes · Questions: FAQ

1. Requirements

Magento's cron must be set up on the server as usual (bin/magento cron:install or your own crontab entry). Cron Manager works with Magento's cron; it does not replace it.

2. Installation

Install with Composer from repo.softawarecommerce.com. The access keys are in your account on softawarecommerce.com; see Composer access for details.

composer config repositories.softaware composer https://repo.softawarecommerce.com
composer config --auth http-basic.repo.softawarecommerce.com PUBLIC_KEY PRIVATE_KEY
composer require softaware/module-cron-manager
bin/magento setup:upgrade
bin/magento setup:di:compile            # production mode only
bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy # production mode only
bin/magento cache:flush

To update later: composer update softaware/module-cron-manager, then the same bin/magento commands.

After installation the admin menu has Softaware > Cron Manager with four items: Cron Jobs, Schedule, Timeline and Settings.

3. Settings

Stores > Configuration > Softaware > Cron Manager (also Softaware > Cron Manager > Settings). All settings are global (default scope). Every field states its default and has a "Use system value" checkbox to restore it.

General

Health Warnings

Stuck Jobs

Failure E-mails

4. Cron Jobs

Softaware > Cron Manager > Cron Jobs lists every job Magento knows: the jobs from crontab.xml files and jobs whose schedule comes from the configuration.

Columns: Job Code, Group, Schedule (the one in use), Default Schedule, State, Schedule Changed, Last Run, Last Status, Avg. Duration, Recent Errors, Pending, Module, Class::Method and Last Message. Some columns are hidden by default; show them with Columns. The grid has filters, keyword search, sorting and saved views. A job whose schedule was changed in the Cron Manager is marked "Changed" in the Schedule column; hover over it to see the default.

Row actions: Edit, Run Now, Enable or Disable, History (the job's entries in the Schedule grid).

Mass actions: Run Now (up to 20 jobs at a time), Enable, Disable, Restore Default Schedule.

Status panel

Above the Cron Jobs and Schedule grids, a status panel shows:

• Cron: running, or how many minutes ago it was last active.
• Last 24 Hours: successful, failed and missed runs (within the history Magento keeps).
• Queue: pending and running entries, and how many are stuck.
• Failing Jobs: jobs that failed the set number of times in a row.
• Job Changes: how many jobs are disabled or rescheduled, and whether the changes are applied.

The figures are cached for 3 minutes so the admin stays fast.

5. Editing a job

Click Edit on a job. The page Cron Job: <code> shows the job information (group, module, class and method, state, default and current schedule, the next runs in the store timezone, and the last run with its status and average duration), and a form to change it.

• State: Enabled or Disabled. A disabled job keeps its definition but is no longer queued, and its pending entries are removed. It can still be started with Run Now.
• Schedule: a cron expression (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week), checked with Magento's own cron parser. Presets: Every minute, Every 5 minutes, Every 15 minutes, Hourly, Every 6 hours, Daily at 03:00, Weekly, Sunday 03:00.
• Use the default schedule: removes your change for this job.

The buttons above the page are Back, History, Run Now (asks for confirmation) and Save. Changes apply from the next cron run. They are stored in the configuration (softaware_cron_manager/overrides/jobs) and can be exported with bin/magento app:config:dump. If that value is set in app/etc/config.php or env.php, the Cron Manager shows the changes as read-only and refuses to change them.

6. Run Now

Run Now starts bin/magento softaware:cron:run <job_code> in the background, so the admin request does not wait for the job. The run:

• takes the same lock as Magento's cron, so it does not start while the job is already running;
• is written to the cron schedule with status, start and finish time and a message such as "Ran manually (admin, <user>) in 0.4 s";
• is logged to var/log/softaware_cron_manager.log.

After a Run Now from the grid you are taken to the Schedule page, where the new entry appears.

7. Schedule

Softaware > Cron Manager > Schedule shows the cron_schedule table as a grid: keyword search (job code or message), filters by job, status, dates and message, a duration column, coloured statuses and a mass delete action.

Clean Up the Schedule

Open the Clean Up the Schedule panel above the grid. Each action asks for confirmation before it runs, and each can be limited to one job code (leave the field empty for all jobs).

8. Timeline

Softaware > Cron Manager > Timeline draws one row per job for a period of 1, 3, 6, 12 or 24 hours. Bars are coloured by status (success, error, running, missed, pending), a line marks the current time, and hovering over a bar shows its details. Filter by group, by job code or to "Only jobs with problems (error, missed or running)", and move with Earlier, Now and Later.

The timeline and the statistics only cover the history Magento keeps (Stores > Configuration > Advanced > System > Cron). Successful runs are kept for a short time by default.

9. Warnings and e-mails

Admin messages appear in Magento's system messages when:

• cron has not run for the set number of minutes (or has never run);
• a job failed the set number of times in a row;
• a job has been running longer than the maximum runtime.

Failure e-mails (off by default) are sent by the cron job softaware_cron_manager_health, which runs every 5 minutes. It e-mails new failures at most once per interval, collecting failures in between, and reports gaps when cron itself did not run. Gaps are measured in the cron history of the last hour, so rescheduling the health job does not cause false alarms. The same job marks stuck jobs as failed when that setting is on.

10. Command line

bin/magento softaware:cron:list [--group=<group>] [--search=<text>] [--disabled] [--overridden] [--failed]
bin/magento softaware:cron:run <job_code> [--trigger=cli] [--user=<name>]
bin/magento softaware:cron:status
bin/magento softaware:cron:set <job_code> [<job_code> ...] [--enable|--disable] [--schedule="*/15 * * * *"]
bin/magento softaware:cron:set <job_code> [<job_code> ...] --default

• list: all jobs with schedule, state, last run and average duration.
• run: runs a job now in the foreground (also disabled jobs); the run is recorded in the cron schedule.
• status: last activity, failing and stuck jobs, counts, disabled and rescheduled jobs.
• set: makes the same changes as the Cron Jobs page, useful in deployment scripts. --default removes all changes of the jobs.

11. Permissions (ACL)

Under System > Permissions > User Roles > Role Resources > Softaware > Cron Manager:

12. Troubleshooting

13. Uninstall

bin/magento module:disable Softaware_CronManager
composer remove softaware/module-cron-manager
bin/magento setup:upgrade

Once the module is removed, all jobs run on their default schedule again. The settings and stored job changes stay in the core_config_data table (paths starting with softaware_cron_manager/); delete those rows if you want a clean database.