Recurring Events are not being generated

[3mediaweb]

We have not had any issues with Recurring Events being automatically generated (with old events automatically cleaned up) but as of this past week, we are noticing that recurring events into the next 2 months are not being generated unless we manually Update each event.

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Reporting the same issue as: https://theeventscalendar.com/support/forums/topic/pro-is-not-creating-recurring-events/

[3mediaweb]

Hello,

We are still having issues with recurring events not being autogenerated, and old events not being cleaned up. Is this a known issue?

[Sky]

Hi Marc,

I apologize for the delay. It looks like my first response here didn’t get saved.

Can you help me understand the steps you are going through when you encounter this issue?

Are you saying the events in the series are not being created when you first create/save the event? And that you have to save again before the other events in the series are being generated?

Or, when you created the event, it generated the events in the series, but not as far into the future as you wanted?

If the latter, in Events > Settings > General, there is a setting “Create recurring events in advance for…” When you first create the event, it will only generate this far in advance.

Can you tell me when the event was first created, and what you have set for this setting?

Thanks,
Sky

[3mediaweb]

Hi Sky,

Thanks for your response.

We have a site that is already set up with an array of recurring events that have been set to create recurrences 2 months in advance, and clean up events older than 1 month. The recurrences/cleanups have been reliably generated/cleaned up for a while now, but at the top of April we started noticing that recurrences into May and June were not being created. Instead the number of recurrences from the first week of May onwards drops down, until the following weeks see zero events created where they should be.

We find that if we go into a particular Event series and just hit Update, only then do all its recurrences for the next 2 months get generated. These are events that were created at varying times earlier in 2018, after we had done a massive overhaul of the various schedules posted to the site we manage.

[Sky]

Marc,

Thank you for the additional information. There is a “chron” that is supposed to run to update the newest event instances, as well as remove any that are past the date to keep.

Can you share with me what you have set in Events > Settings > General for “Clean up recurring events after”? Are the events getting removed properly as per this setting?

To see if the chron is being run on your site, try the following:

• Install and activate the WP Crontrol plugin
• Go to Tools > Cron Events and check if this cron exists and is being run daily
• See if the chron actually works by clicking on “Run now” – check to see if this generates the events that you are expecting

Thanks!
Sky

[3mediaweb]

Hi Sky,

Here are our settings for the Recurring Events under General: https://www.screencast.com/t/JvgZhgdH

We have recurring events set to generate up to 2 months in advance, and to clean up events older than 1 month.

Here’s a screenshot of the current month of April: https://www.screencast.com/t/K8mRIBE9o

and month of May: https://www.screencast.com/t/uRD1diGoq

As you can see, recurring events are fine for the first few weeks but then they start dropping off as the month progresses. Some events seem to keep on going, but I think that’s because those specific events were manually Updated so that would trigger their recurrences. We have not manually updated every single event, as we thought maybe the cron job would take care of the rest. However, this is not the case.

See month of February: https://www.screencast.com/t/FJj40VTryyb

Aside from events that were separated from the Series, all recurring events from February should be cleaned up but for some events that doesn’t seem to be the case. I can still see some recurring events available in January too.

wP Crontrol shows that the cron jobs are set to run daily: https://www.screencast.com/t/PkmXh0YsO

Running the cron job did not generate the future events.

[Sky]

Marc,

Thank you for installing that plugin and checking those settings for me. I would like to focus in on a specific event that is not automatically propagating. Can you provide an example of one of the events that has not been manually updated? A screenshot of the date/time and event series settings from that event will help me verify that this is not working as expected.

Thanks!

Sky

[3mediaweb]

Sky,

Here are some examples. Every Sunday, there are four recurring events: Step, Cycle & Core, Yogalates and FitKids.

Screenshot from calendar: https://www.screencast.com/t/6rE8gBv4

All four events: https://www.screencast.com/t/4MkSXGq6o53

Settings on the “Step” event: https://www.screencast.com/t/tgBDw0uGd90Y

Same applies for the other 3 events.

All events are set for indefinite recurrence, and as you saw previously, site is supposed to generate recurring events 2 months in advance. But as you can see, all recurrences stop short.

[Sky]

Marc,

Thanks for providing that additional information. I’ve asked around, and am going to see if there’s a way for me to try and reproduce this within my test environment. I will get back to you tomorrow with some more information.

Thanks so much for your patience.

Sky

[Sky]

Marc,

Here’s what I’m trying in my local environment to test this.

I’m creating an event in April 2017 and for event series, I am setting it to repeat every week indefinitely. My settings are set to create events for 24 months in advance, and to clean up after 24 months. After saving the event, I have recurrences from the original date all the way up to two years from now.

Then, I’m changing my settings (in Events > Settings > General) to create events 36 months in advance, and to clean up after 3 months. I then go to the WP Crontrol settings, and run the cron that deals with recurring events.

When I go back to events, I see that additional events have been created, now as far as 3 years ahead. Also, events between the original and 3 months ago have been deleted. Note that the original event does not get removed.

Can you try changing your settings to have events go forward a bit further and to get removed a little sooner, run the cron, and see what effect this has on the “Step” event?

When you run the cron, do you see a “success” message?

If the new events aren’t created and the old not removed when you try this, then we need to do this same test with the default Twenty Seventeen theme and all non Events Calendar plugins disabled. (except for the Crontrol plugin of course).

Please let me know the results of this.

Thanks,
Sky

[3mediaweb]

Hi Sky,

We had moved away from setting recurrences too far in the future, as we had previously found that setting such a high threshold for recurrences really taxes our site, or cause it to time out. A lower threshold of 2 months recurrence and 1 month for cleanup, seemed to work better.

We disabled all but the EC Pro plugins and WP Crontrol, and set theme to Twenty Seventeen. We refreshed one of our main event category pages and manually ran the cron job for the Recurrence creation. Still no events being autogenerated after that, though WP Crontrol says the cron job ran successfully. We also set up an external cron and disabled the site’s internal cron, but that reports no cron failures either. Refreshed the category page for the events that should be generating recurrences, but they’re still not populating into the next 2 months. Only upon adding a brand new recurring event, or hitting Update on an existing event, do recurrences get created.

As we have many events already entered into the calendar, this would be a bit tedious and not guarantee that the recurrences will be generated when the next batch should be generated. The automatic generation is not working, though all signs in cron say that it should be firing.

[Sky]

Marc,

Thanks for trying that out. My suggestion for moving the time on those settings was only for testing, to get the cron to trigger. It can be set to whatever your needs are.

It definitely sounds like the future events are not being generated. Can you tell me if the past events were removed after that process? That will help me determine if the entire cron is failing, or just the future events part of it.

Thanks,
Sky

[3mediaweb]

Sky,

Past events a month old don’t seem to be cleaned up either. We’ve set the site up to clean up events that are at least a month old.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by 3mediaweb.

[Sky]

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[3mediaweb]

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