Ubuntu 14.04 LTS cron jobs stop executing on schedule

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Backups, cleanup, or reports are missed and SLAs are affected.

Environment & Reproduction

Fails after package changes, permission drift, or bad crontab edits.

Root Cause Analysis

Cron service down, malformed entries, or missing runtime environment.

Quick Triage

Verify cron daemon is running and review syslog for execution attempts.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Validate crontab syntax, user context, and command absolute paths.

Solution – Primary Fix

Correct crontab lines, set explicit env vars, and restart cron service.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Move critical tasks to systemd timers or external scheduler.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Jobs execute at expected times with successful exit codes.

Rollback Plan

Restore previous crontab backup if new schedule introduces regressions.

Prevention & Hardening

Add monitoring checks for job freshness and output anomalies.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

No MTA installed and command not found in cron context.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

View all Ubuntu 14.04 LTS tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

crontab and cron daemon documentation for Ubuntu.