Debug Why Timed Automation is not Automatically Running

Hi there!

I’ve been facing an issue with an automation that is supposed to trigger at the start of the month; however, even though it is enabled it’s not automatically being triggered. I can’t find any logs or a way to debug why it’s not running on its own when it’s expected to do so. Does anyone of you know how I could resolve this issue please?

As you can see below the automation is expected to ‘Schedule a PM with Data Explorer results’ automatically every month. If I click “trigger now” it will work as expected: the users added to the list will receive the Data Explorer result as well as a CSV; however, the automatic trigger is not runninng.

I’d appreciate any feedback or suggestions that you can help me resolve this. Thank you!

Did you confirm the exact scheduled date and the time zone setting, and, if available, did you turn on the Run Missed Jobs button?

Have you done any tests to ensure all the criteria are being met naturally (besides trigger now)? I.e., set the timing to occur daily and go to a dummy group. If it works correctly, then shift to monthly to your actual group.

Also, I believe your target audience needs to have the data explorer query shared to them:

Hi

Thanks for the help.. @kairo162 @putty

Yes.. but the issue is not that it’s not running at the scheduled date/time, the issue is that it’s not running at all.

Where can I find this button please?

It’s supposed to send a direct PM to two users. The users have the query shared shared to them. Thanks for the suggestion to test by trying different timing. I’ll try to experiment using a dummy group as well.

The main difference I notice is that your interface doesn’t show when the automation is supposed to trigger next.

I think I would start by setting up a new automation with the same settings and checking whether that gets a ‘next trigger date’ after enabling it.

i use this exact automation script in multiple places without issue. here is what my config in one of them - i changed the recurrence to 5 minutes instead of a week for this test, but it fires weekly as expected when that is set):

PM (tech-admin is a group)

try triggering the automation and then have a look at your logs at yoursite/logs

i see this:

maybe try removing that control knobs emoji from the script name and data explorer query title. that might be breaking the payload (although i think they should be ok).

Hi @Moin @Lilly

Thanks for the help! I’m afraid the mystery is still not solved… here’s why:

Before the ‘trigger date’ that’s exactly how it looked with the message ‘Next automation will trigger at: [date/time]’; however, after that date/time passed without it running successfully, it doesn’t show the message. While testing, I changed the timing to 1 minute and the trigger message reappeared. On a previous month when it didn’t trigger, I updated the timer and it showed the message that it will trigger on the first hour of the upcoming month (but it didn’t).

It actually worked and got triggered on some month while it didn’t on other months so it’s not clear why, but now it seems to no longer automatically activate ever. What is the version of the Discourse you’re using? Mine is 2026.5.0-latest…

Unfortunately, even when I trigger, nothing appears in the /logs. (I’ve all options selected).

I don’t think that’s the issue because I changed the trigger to 1 minute and it got sent:

i’m on same and i update weekly at minimum

Okay, thanks! Would you like to try to create a test automation that triggers monthly please?

I have a feeling that the issue is with the ‘monthly’ trigger because when I change it to 1 minute trigger, it works.

ok i set it to a month then triggered it and it worked. but waiting a month to test isn’t really useful here. i’ll try setting the start date in a few minutes.

edit: monthly appears to be working for me