A scheduled post depends on both the saved publication time and the site’s task runner.
Steps
- Open the item and confirm its status, intended date, and time. Compare these with the timezone under Settings → General; your computer’s clock is not the site setting.
- Check whether the item remains scheduled, has missed its schedule, or was changed back to draft by an editorial workflow.
- Review Site Health for scheduled-event or loopback problems. Standard WP-Cron checks due tasks when WordPress receives a page load, so low traffic can delay execution.
- If a system scheduler was configured to replace WP-Cron, verify its latest successful run with the person or account managing that configuration. Do not disable the existing runner without a working replacement.
- Once the cause is corrected, schedule one harmless test post a few minutes ahead and check the public result. For urgent content, use the editor’s publish action after confirming that immediate publication is intended.
Check the result
Confirm the test’s actual publication time, then recheck other items that were due during the failure.
Before you continue
Avoid repeated duplicate test posts or competing cron configurations. A saved future timestamp alone does not prove that background processing is working.
Documentation for this guidance: developer.wordpress.org — cron; wordpress.org — settings general screen; wordpress.org — site health screen.
