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Asked: 2026-05-11T16:10:02+00:00

I have a file update.php which does some MySQL operations. A cron job executes

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I have a file “update.php” which does some MySQL operations. A cron job executes this file every 5 minutes. Unfortunately, I cannot execute the cron job more often.

So I had the idea that I could add …

<html>
<head>
  <meta http-equiv="refresh"  content="2; URL=<?php echo $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']; ?>" />
</head>
<body></body>
</html>

… to the page “update.php“. Will cron execute the file in a way that the page will refresh automatically? Or will that not happen because there is no client with a browser?

If it the meta refresh has no effect, is there any other possibility to achieve the refreshing of the page?

Thanks in advance!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’m afraid that won’t work, because it’s a browser feature to refresh the page.

    Question: Why can’t you set the cron job to run more frequently that every 5 minutes?

    If there is no other option then you could create you’re own daemon to do the job more frequently.

    e.g.
    Your php script could:

    • Run
    • Wait 60 seconds
    • Run
    • ( Wait; Run; two more times)
    • exit

    For example: (By variation of sshow‘s code)

    <?php

$secs = 60;

ignore_user_abort(true);
set_time_limit(0);

dostuff();
sleep($secs);
dostuff();
sleep($secs);
dostuff();
sleep($secs);
dostuff();
sleep($secs);
dostuff();

?>

    This version of the script will remain resident for four minutes, and execute the code 4 times which would be equivalent to running every minute, if this script is run by cron every 5 minutes.

    There seems some confusion about what a cronjob is, and how it is run.

    cron is a daemon, which sits in the background, and run tasks through the shell at a schedule specified in crontabs.

    Each user has a crontab, and there is a system crontab.

    Each user’s crontab can specify jobs which are run as that user.

    For example:

    # run five minutes after midnight, every day
5 0 * * *       $HOME/bin/daily.job >> $HOME/tmp/out 2>&1
# run at 2:15pm on the first of every month -- output mailed to paul
15 14 1 * *     $HOME/bin/monthly
# run at 10 pm on weekdays, annoy Joe
0 22 * * 1-5    mail -s "It's 10pm" joe%Joe,%%Where are your kids?%
23 0-23/2 * * * echo "run 23 minutes after midn, 2am, 4am ..., everyday"
5 4 * * sun     echo "run at 5 after 4 every sunday"

    So to run every five minutes:

    */5 * * * *     echo "This will be run every five minutes"

    Or to run every minute:

    * * * * *       echo "This will be run every minute"

    The output from the commands are emailed to the owner of the crontab (or as specified by MAILTO).
    This means if you run something every minute it will email you every minute, unless you ensure all normal output is suppressed or redirected.

    The commands are run as the user who owns the crontab, which contrasts with the scripts run by the web-server, which are run as the ‘nobody’ user (or similar – whatever the web-server is configured to run as).
    This can make life more complicated if the cronjob is writing to files which are supposed to be accessed by the scripts run by the web-server. Basically you have to ensure that the permissions remain correct.

    Now, I’m not sure that this is the system you are refering to. If you mean something else by cronjob then the above might not apply.

    If you want to do something that your current host is not letting you do, then rather than hacking around the restriction, you might what to look at switching hosting provider?

    An alternative is to put the script in you’re normal scripts location, and have some external scheduler run wget against it at whatever frequency you like.

    Another alternative is on-demand updating of the form of vartec‘s suggestion. However that may not solve your problems.

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