Metronome

Keeps Flarum's scheduled tasks ticking on shared hosting. Many shared hosts disable PHP's proc_open function, and Flarum's scheduler depends on it: every scheduled task is launched as a separate process. Metronome adds a schedule:run-inline command that runs the exact same schedule inside the one PHP process your cron job already starts, so nothing needs proc_open at all.

The problem it solves

On hosting with proc_open disabled, php flarum schedule:run looks fine: it exits cleanly, and the admin dashboard even reports the scheduler as active. But no scheduled task ever actually runs. The only trace is a line buried in the log for every task, every minute:

The Process class relies on proc_open, which is not available on your PHP installation.

So extensions that clean up, sync, or aggregate on a schedule quietly do nothing, and it looks like their bug.

What it runs, and how faithfully

schedule:run-inline walks the same schedule as schedule:run and keeps the same behaviour wherever that is possible without launching processes:

• Due-time, environment and maintenance-mode checks work as before.
• withoutOverlapping() locks are honoured, and are compatible both ways with locks taken by the stock runner.
• onOneServer() is honoured.
• Before/after hooks, success/failure hooks and sendOutputTo() / appendOutputTo() output capture all work.
• Closure-based tasks run through Flarum's own machinery untouched.
• Failures are reported to the Flarum log, and the admin dashboard's scheduler status is updated the same way the stock runner updates it.

Two things cannot be identical without proc_open, and the command is upfront about both instead of skipping work silently:

• A task that asks for runInBackground() runs in the foreground instead, with a warning in the output. It still runs.
• A task scheduled as a raw shell command via exec() cannot run at all without launching a process. It is reported as a failed task rather than ignored.

If your hosting does have proc_open, keep using the stock schedule:run. This extension is for the hosts where that is not an option.

Flarum compatibility

Flarum 2.0 only. There is no build for Flarum 1.8.