Joomla Cron failing

[TimG]

Hi,
We have problems getting the Cron job set up
wget -O /dev/null 'http://www.xxx.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/bin/cron.php?name=xxx&pass=xxx&key=xxx' > /dev/null

If I run this in a browser it runs fine (well, I get a 200 response). If I run it via the Cron job it fails
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 401 Authorization Required Authorization failed.

Any clues as to where it's failing? Nothing is getting logged in the local error log or the CiviCRM log

[Dan C]

Are you still using Joomla 2.5.11 and Civi 4.3.3 like your profile says?  Or are you using more recent versions of one or both?

[TimG]

profile updated - we're actually on J!2.5.24 and Civi 4.4.6

[Dan C]

Ok, that's a bit odd.  There was an issue when Joomla went from 2.5.17 to 2.5.18 because they changed the password encryption.  However, that was patched in 4.4.5 (I believe), so you should be all set there.  The issue is documented at https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-14208?jql=text%20~%20%22authentication%20joomla%22

Have you tried resetting the password for the cron user through the Joomla user manager?  I have had to do that before to solve this issue.

[TimG]

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. I saw the issue with J!2.5.18. We were on Civi 4.3.something, waited until Civi 4.4.6 to do the upgrade.

I've tried resetting the password, logging on with that user, deleting the user and trying again, sync users to contacts,
I've found a 4.5 fix that needs implementing in 4.4.6 (http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php?topic=33510.0)

Still getting 401 Authorisation error on my cron job

Anyone got any other suggestions for things to try to debug this?

[TimG]

One step forward, one step back.

I've debugged and hacked the code and got it to the point where it runs - if I run it in a browser. At that point it processes anything that needs it, flags the job as having been run.

However.

If I run exactly the same URL in a Cron job it fails with error 401 Authorisation required
Nothing in the configandlog files. I've got other cron jobs running fine so it's not just that *all* cron jobs are failing.

Anybody know what is failing the authentication check?

[TimG]

Finally.

Having said I have a number of cron jobs that run OK, I compared the tasks that were actually running. Turns out the Civi one is the only one run from the administrator directory. And we've got an htaccess password protect on the administrator directory.
Although we had 'allow from localhost' in there I had to explicitly allow the server IP - lo and behold the job runs!

Time for a large gin I think