How to resolve WP-CRON causing high resource usage

WP-CRON is used by plugins and certain Wordpress core functions to schedule events such as backups, publishing scheduled posts or running scheduled virus scans. 


WP-CRON is called to check for any scheduled tasks that is due to be run each time a site is being accessed even if the page being accessed does not require any scheduled tasks. 


This in turn results in large number of WP-CRON requests made to the server when the site is experiencing high traffic which can cause a simple website to be resource intensive. 


To resolve this, we would disable WP-CRON and use the system cron instead so that WP-CRON is not executed. 


How to disable WP-CRON

  1. Go to your WordPress root folder and open the wp-config.php file.
    You can do so from the FTP or from the File Manage of your respective control panel. 

  2. Insert the following line of code directly above the line ‘/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */’
    define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

  3. Save the file. 


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