Thread

I’m having some trouble setting up blacklist cron. I had it working, but decided I wanted to add a “.” in front of the template name, and now it’s not working (yes, I tried changing it back). The current template group/template is utility/.cron (was utility/cron).

• I do have my license number entered in Admin > General Configuration.
• I have the Blacklist/Whitelist module, EE Cron, and Cron Retrieve EE Blacklist installed.
• I am able to update my .htaccess by clicking submit underneath the field where I entered the server path to my .htaccess file in the module.
• I have the following in a template: {exp:cron minute="0" hour="6" plugin="cron_blacklist"}{/exp:cron}

I tried changing the time to a few minutes ahead of the then-current time and checking my .htaccess after that time had passed. I used minute=“20” hour=“15” for 3:20pm. I even tried minute=”*” hour=”*” (just as a test).

License: Freelancer v2.1.1 | Build: 20101020
Server is running PHP 5
Using NSM .htaccess Generator

(yes, I tried changing it back).

What happens if you create a new template and call it utility/cron2? Does *that* work?

No, that didn’t work.

I created a PHP file to check the time on my server. Here’s the code:

<?php echo date('G:ia'); ?>

It shows 16:03pm right now, and it’s 6:03pm. I tried using the 16, but I’m not versed in cron, so I don’t know if the time works the same as PHP…

Also tried this again:

{!-- blacklist --}
{exp:cron minute="*" hour="*" plugin="cron_blacklist"}{/exp:cron}

Could DST have any play in this?

Changed the template code back to:

{!-- blacklist --}
{exp:cron minute="0" hour="6" plugin="cron_blacklist"}{/exp:cron}

I’ll report back when I have a chance tomorrow.

Curtis, also make sure your cron code is on a page that gets hit frequently.

Let us know what you find out.

oh, so the page does need to be hit.

does it need to be hit at the time that it’s supposed to retrieve the blacklist?

It works like that: when your page is hit “cron” checks to see if there are any tasks is has to carry out and does so if needed. If you hit a page after the specified date that will work, too, but you need to hit it in order to trigger the check in the first place. Makes sense?

I think so… but I tried visiting the template and it didn’t update .htaccess or record a hit in my template manager.

I think so… but I tried visiting the template and it didn’t update .htaccess or record a hit in my template manager.

If you hit other pages, do the template manager hits count increment?

No. All hit counts are 0.

Not sure if this affects anything, but I do have the system off. I tried turning it on to see if that would increment the hits, but it didn’t.

Curtis,

Can you try with your .htaccess disabled and your extensions temporarily disabled? Use the large green button in the top right of the extension page as opposed to disabling extensions individually

How can I disable my .htaccess? And what am I trying? To get the hits counted? Or should it create a separate .htaccess for the blacklist?

You would have to delete or rename .htaccess in order to disable it.

I figured out this first bit, but I’m putting it here in case anyone else follows along and runs into this.
Disabling my extensions gives me errors like this:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /SERVER_PATH/SYSTEM_PATH/expressionengine/third_party/nsm_body_class/pi.nsm_body_class.php on line 38

Cause and Solution
Still had tags referencing extensions in my templates. Removing/commenting-them-out should fix those.

Unsolved issue
I’m getting a blank white screen in my CP with my .htaccess disabled.

Curtis,

Ok can you enable your htaccess again please? Make sure it has correct permissions. Leave the extensions disabled for the moment.

In your homepage template add the following updating it the time to run in the next minute or so

{exp:cron minute="0" hour="5" plugin="cron_blacklist"}{/exp:cron}

No luck.