Using the cron facility

Question

I have unsuccessfully been trying to get the cron facility to work and would like someone to help me please.

I am working on a Joomla 3 site. The CP provides a facility to create a cron job which needs the timing codes (no problem there) and the command line. OK, so I insert a command line which points to the cron.php file and passes the three parameters in the URL i.e. http://www.zoolake.co.za/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/bin/cron.php?name=username&pass=password&key=site-key&task=who_knows_what (I used the correct username, password and site-key)

As the parameter names given in the documentation are not correct (I examined the cron.php file to establish the correct names) I changed them to the ones shown above. However, I don't know what to put into the job parameter and the documentation is silent on that. I have tried "job.execute" but that produces an error. I have copied the link from the manual link on the schedule jobs page, but that too doesn't work. Please can someone help?

Answer 1

I have got it sorted. I had made the following errors: 1. The command line doesn't need the parameter "task", so only the first three. This worked when I used that amended URL as a url in a browser but then I had to include it in the control panel of the hosting site. 2. For the cron job facility provided by the hosting site in the control panel, I had to change the url to: home/public-html/components/com_civicrm...etc. Then it all worked well!