HUSKY - WooCommerce Products Filter Professional

The Problem

Users report that WOOF’s Turbo Mode automatic file regeneration doesn’t work reliably:

Symptoms:

• Turbo mode enabled with”Daily cron” schedule
• WordPress cron job woof_turbo_do_recreate_file is not being created
• Manual file generation works perfectly
• Automatic updates generate partial/empty files
• File regeneration seems to never complete

Impact:

• Outdated filter counts displayed to customers
• Poor user experience (seeing products that don’t exist)
• Manual intervention required daily

Why This Happens: Two Root Causes

1. File Clearing Race Condition

When WOOF regenerates the turbo file, it follows this process:

// Step 1: Clear the file
file_put_contents($turbo_file, ''); 

// Step 2: Write new data (takes time)
foreach ($products as $product) {
    // Heavy processing for each product...
    file_put_contents($turbo_file, $data, FILE_APPEND);
}

The Problem:
If your site has many products (1000+), Step 2 can take 60-120 seconds. If PHP’s max_execution_time (usually 30-60 seconds) is exceeded, the script terminates mid-write, leaving the file empty or partial.

2. WordPress Cron Isn’t Real Cron

WordPress cron (wp-cron.php) has critical limitations:

❌ Not guaranteed to run – only triggers when someone visits your site
❌ Can be blocked – caching plugins may prevent execution
❌ No long-running tasks – killed by PHP execution limits
❌ Unreliable timing – may run late or not at all

Real-world scenario:
Your site gets traffic mostly during business hours (9 AM – 6 PM). You schedule turbo regeneration for 3 AM. Result: It never runs because no one visits at 3 AM to trigger wp-cron.php.

The Reliable Solution: Server-Side Cron

Replace WordPress cron with real server cron that runs independently of site traffic.

Step 1: Disable WordPress Cron

Add to wp-config.php (before /* That's all, stop editing! */):

/**
 * Disable WordPress cron - we'll use server cron instead
 */
define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

Step 2: Add Server Crontab Entry

Option A: Using PHP CLI (Recommended)

# Open crontab editor
crontab -e

# Add this line (runs daily at 3 AM)
0 3 * * * php /var/www/html/yoursite/wp-cron.php >/dev/null 2>&1

Option B: Using wget

# Add this line to crontab
0 3 * * * wget -q -O - https://yoursite.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1

# Add this line to crontab
0 3 * * * curl -s https://yoursite.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1

/**
 * Increase limits for cron tasks (turbo file generation)
 */
@ini_set('max_execution_time', 300); // 5 minutes
@ini_set('memory_limit', '512M');    // 512 MB RAM

Or create .user.ini in your WordPress root:

max_execution_time = 300
memory_limit = 512M