What am I doing wrong creating post draft via wp-cron? (wp_schedule_event & wp_insert_post)

Question

So I've been googling and apparently a lot of people have struggled with this for the past X years and there doesn't seem to be any clear responses on Stack Overflow.

What I am developing is a plugin that grabs data via API from another publishing system and ideally creates post drafts in wordpress. When I call my wp_insert_post wrapper from plugin init, all works (and I end up with dozens of posts, as it goes). But when scheduled I just end up with no post, no error, just nothing.

function wpcp_make_post( $post_title, $post_content, $post_type ) {
 $post_id = 0;
  if ( post_type_exists( $post_type ) ) :
  wp_set_current_user( 1 );
  $to_post = array(
    'post_type'     => $post_type,
    'post_status'   => 'draft',
    'post_author'   => 1,
    'post_title'    => $post_title,
    'post_content'  => $post_content,
  );

  $post_id = wp_insert_post( $to_post );
  endif;
 return $post_id;
}

...

// way its wrapped
function wpcp_cron_activation() {
 if ( ! wp_next_scheduled( 'wpcp_cron_hook' ) ) :
  wp_schedule_event( time() , 'hourly', 'wpcp_cron_hook' ); // = daily
 endif;
}
function wpcp_cron_do() {
  $post_title = "This should be the draft title";
  $post_content = "All HERE";
  wpcp_make_post( $post_title, $post_content, 'post' );
}
...

// and called 
function wpcp_activate(){
 add_action( 'wpcp_cron_hook', 'wpcp_cron_do' );
 register_activation_hook(__FILE__, 'wpcp_cron_activation');
 wpcp_cron_activation();
 //wpcp_cron_print_tasks();
}
add_action( 'admin_init', 'wpcp_activate' );

I am using the wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron parameter with the correct wp-config but I'm not even getting any errors.

Just no bloody post, ever.

  define('WP_DEBUG', true);
  define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

So before I waste my time on some alternative draft creation, can anybody tell me what is it that I am doing wrong that it will not create a post?

Answer 1

The problem is that you're only hooking the cron action on admin_init, which doesn't run when wp-cron.php is called. So the function will never run.

So this function shouldn't be inside wpcp_activate():

add_action( 'wpcp_cron_hook', 'wpcp_cron_do' );

Also, register_activation_hook() shouldn't be inside the admin_init hook either.

So your code should look like this:

function wpcp_make_post( $post_title, $post_content, $post_type ) {
    $post_id = 0;

    if ( post_type_exists( $post_type ) ) :
        wp_set_current_user( 1 );

        $to_post = array(
            'post_type'     => $post_type,
            'post_status'   => 'draft',
            'post_author'   => 1,
            'post_title'    => $post_title,
            'post_content'  => $post_content,
        );

        $post_id = wp_insert_post( $to_post );
    endif;

    return $post_id;
}

function wpcp_cron_activation() {
    if ( ! wp_next_scheduled( 'wpcp_cron_hook' ) ) :
        wp_schedule_event( time() , 'hourly', 'wpcp_cron_hook' ); // = daily
    endif;
}
register_activation_hook( __FILE__, 'wpcp_cron_activation' );

function wpcp_cron_do() {
    $post_title   = 'This should be the draft title';
    $post_content = 'All HERE';

    wpcp_make_post( $post_title, $post_content, 'post' );
}
add_action( 'wpcp_cron_hook', 'wpcp_cron_do' );