Cron and Email Queue Watchdog for WHMCS
Alerts your staff by email or webhook when the WHMCS cron misses its schedule, daily automation does not finish or outgoing email stops.
What will the watchdog do?
When the WHMCS cron stops, nothing breaks loudly: invoices are not generated, cards are not charged, and nobody notices until a client asks why an invoice never came. Mail can stop just as quietly after an SMTP password change.
Every few minutes the watchdog checks the cron, the daily automation, the Email Message Log, send errors in the Activity Log, the campaign email queue and the Disable Email Sending setting against limits you set. Each problem raises one alert, a reminder while it lasts, and an all-clear when it is fixed.
This product is built to order: you get the license key once your account is checked and the download within 7 business days of purchase.
What does WHMCS already do, and what does this add?
WHMCS shows a Warning badge on its Automation Status page when the cron has not been invoked for two hours, and an Error badge when daily tasks have not run in 24 hours. System Health lists missed daily tasks, the daily run emails a digest report, and the Email Message Log lists sent mail. All of these wait for someone to look. WHMCS notification rules cover tickets, invoices, orders, services and domains, not a cron that stopped. The watchdog adds checks that run outside the WHMCS cron and push alerts to you.
What is included?
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Cron | Alerts when the system cron misses the minutes you allow |
| Daily tasks | Alerts when daily automation has not finished by your set hour |
| Alerts when no email is logged in your busy hours, or send errors pass a limit | |
| Queue | Alerts when campaign emails wait longer than you allow |
| Channels | Email through a separate SMTP account, and webhooks for Slack, Discord or any URL |
| Status URL | A secret link an outside uptime monitor can check |
| History | Every alert and all-clear logged in the admin area |
Who is it for?
Any host whose billing runs through the WHMCS cron. It matters most after server moves and PHP upgrades, when cron entries tend to break. To watch your servers too, my Uptime Monitor covers that job.
What do you need, and what are the limits?
Requirements: a self-hosted WHMCS 8.13 or 9.x (I confirm your exact version at purchase), PHP 8.1 or newer, and one extra cron entry on your server for the watchdog's own check.
Limits: the watchdog reports problems; it does not restart the cron or change your mail settings. If the whole server is down, its own check stops too; the status URL lets an outside monitor catch that. It reads the WHMCS logs, so it sees failed or stopped sending, not whether mail reached the inbox.
It costs $29 once for a lifetime license with twelve months of updates and support, and a seven-day refund window. Your account is checked by hand, which can take up to 24 hours, before the license key is issued, and the download follows within 7 business days of purchase.
Key features
- Alert when the system cron misses the time you allow
- Alert when daily automation has not finished by a set hour
- Alert when email stops being logged during your busy hours
- Alert when email send errors pass a limit you set
- Alert when campaign emails wait too long in the queue
- Alert when Disable Email Sending is left on
- Email alerts through a separate SMTP account
- Webhooks for Slack, Discord or any URL
- Secret status URL for an outside uptime monitor
- One alert per problem, reminders while it lasts and an all-clear
Why customers buy this module
- →A stopped cron is found in minutes, not when clients complain
- →Alerts still arrive when WHMCS mail is the part that broke
- →No daily trips to the Automation Status page
Frequently asked questions
How can it alert me if the cron itself has stopped?
Its checks do not ride on the WHMCS cron. You add one extra cron entry for the watchdog, and it also gives you a secret status URL that an outside uptime monitor can poll. If the WHMCS cron stops, the watchdog's entry still runs; if the whole server goes down, the outside monitor sees the status URL fail.
Why not send the alerts through WHMCS's own mail?
Because the watchdog has to work when WHMCS mail is the part that failed. Alerts go through a separate SMTP account you enter, such as a mailbox with another provider, and through webhooks to Slack, Discord or any URL. You can use either or both.
When will I get it, and what if you can't deliver?
You get the license key after a manual account check, which can take up to 24 hours, and the download within 7 business days of purchase. If I do not deliver it in that time, you get a full refund. Otherwise the store's seven-day refund window applies.
Technical specifications
- WHMCS
- 8.13 and 9.x, self-hosted (confirmed at purchase)
- PHP
- 8.1+
- Checks run by
- Its own cron entry, separate from the WHMCS cron
- Alert channels
- Email through a separate SMTP account, Slack, Discord, any webhook URL
- Availability
- Built to order, delivered in 7 business days
- License
- Lifetime, 1 year of updates and support included
- Delivery
- License key after a manual account check (up to 24 hours); download when built
- Refund window
- 7 days
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