Cron not running

[firmdot]

Since upgrading to 2.7 and now 2.8 we're unable to schedule posts. The error is missed schedule.

There are a number of people having this issue too, check page 3 for the most recent reports:

​http://wordpress.org/support/topic/221086/page/3

There are some changes to wp-cron in 2.8, see [10521]. Use the native cron if available or try adding

define('ALTERNATE_WP_CRON', true);

to wp-config.php.

This is maybe a result of options cache stomping on each other.

In my debugging, I've noticed that options cache (cron) is seriously out of sync with the corresponding db records, especially when the user shedules multiple future posts within a few minutes. But it does seem to be caused by some changes in 2.8, because I saw this issue resurfaced again in the past several days.

See also #10104 for possibly related transport issues.

Replying to azaozz:

There are some changes to wp-cron in 2.8, see [10521]. Use the native cron if available or try adding

define('ALTERNATE_WP_CRON', true);

to wp-config.php.

While adding that to my config file did work, it seems to create some funny links. I'm guessing this works by occasionally appending '?doing_wp_cron' to the URL. I've seen a few visitors to my site create links they've seen with that appended to the URL since making that change. And I'm seeing some of those URLs get indexed in Google that way:
​http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:%3Fdoing_wp_cron

This ticket was obsoleted by #11505. Please file new tickets for the 2.9 branch.