Three checks tell you whether the hourly sync is alive, in increasing order of certainty: the Last Action column, the activity records, and the WordPress cron event list. Run them in that order and you will know within a couple of minutes.
After a plugin update, run these checks once before you trust the next import. See will an MLSImport update break my site?
Check one: the Import Tasks list
Open Import Tasks. Three columns matter. Status shows the state of each task: synced, importing, sync overdue, stuck, failed, auto-sync off or never imported. Synced is what you want on every task you expect to be current. Stuck most often means a manual import was cut off part way, so run the task by hand and let it finish. Failed and sync overdue point at the schedule or the host, so carry on to checks two and three. If you do not see the column, update the plugin.
- Auto Update Enabled reads yes or no. A task reading no is not on the schedule at all, and no amount of cron work will change that. Open it and turn on Enable Auto Update every hour.
- Last Action shows when a run last found new or edited listings for that task, with a note saying so.
Read Last Action carefully, because it is not a heartbeat. It moves when the sync had something to do. A task covering a small or quiet area can show a date several days old while the schedule is running perfectly, since the MLS returned no changes to record.
What it does tell you is the opposite case. If Last Action has not moved in days across every task, on a market where listings are certainly changing, something is wrong.
Check two: the activity records
Open MLS Import Settings, then Import History. Every property added, edited or deleted is recorded with a timestamp and a source, and the source column distinguishes a scheduled run from a manual import.
A scheduled run is labelled Automatically in the Source column, and a run you started yourself is labelled Manual. Rows reading Automatically in the last day are proof the schedule is running and doing work. This is the check that separates “the sync is broken” from “nothing in my market changed today”, which the Last Action column alone cannot do.
The MLSImport activity banner across wp-admin gives the same answer at a glance for the last 24 hours.
If one task has stopped updating while the others are fine, the usual cause is an interrupted manual import. The sync only runs on a task that has completed an import, so a run that was killed part way leaves that task marked as still running and it is skipped every hour after. Run it manually and let it finish to release it.
Check three: the WordPress cron event list
This one confirms the schedule itself, independently of MLSImport.
- Install and activate the WP Crontrol plugin.
- Go to Tools, then Cron Events.
- Search for
mls. You should seeevent_mls_import_autoscheduled hourly andmlsimport_reconciliation_eventscheduled daily. - Read the warning area at the top. A notice saying the
DISABLE_WP_CRONconstant is set to true means WordPress will not run the schedule by itself.
Both events being present confirms the plugin registered them correctly. It does not confirm they run: with WP-Cron disabled and no server cron configured, they sit there listed and permanently overdue.
After fixing cron on a site that was down for a while, run each import task manually once. The sync only looks at a two hour window, so the changes from the outage are outside it and are never filled in on their own.
Frequently asked questions
How current should my listings be?
If the schedule checks out and your homes are still behind, walk through every reason your website can be out of date compared to your MLS.
Within an hour or two of the MLS on a site with steady traffic and a working schedule. If your listings are consistently a day or more behind, the schedule is being driven by visits rather than by a clock.
Last Action moves but prices are still wrong. What now?
The schedule is running, so this is a field problem rather than a cron problem. Check that the field is selected on the Select Import fields tab, and check the property in Import History to confirm it was edited when you expected.
Can I see the exact listings a scheduled run touched?
Yes. Filter Import History by import task and by action. For the underlying detail of a specific run, turn logging on under Tools, let a run happen, and read the dated cron log in the plugin’s logs folder.
Does anything break if the sync does not run for a week?
Nothing breaks and nothing is deleted incorrectly. Your listings go stale, and the missed changes are not recovered by later runs, so a manual re-import of each task is needed once the schedule is working again.
Do I need to run these checks every day?
No. You do not log in and click import. Once a task has finished its first import and auto update is on, the hourly update and the daily cleanup run on their own. On a site with a real server cron, a weekly look is enough: open Import History, look for rows marked Automatically in the last day or two, and check that both banners on MLS Import Settings are green. Run the three full checks above when something looks wrong, and the day after a plugin update, a hosting move or a new MLS login. The daily cleanup also has a brake: if your MLS sends back less than 80 percent of the listings your site holds, it deletes nothing that day. See how daily cleanup works.
Will MLS Import email me if the hourly update stops?
Not to your inbox. The plugin sends a daily health report to mlsimport.com, which lets our support team see a stopped schedule when you open a ticket. The Alerts daily email goes out only on days with listing changes to report, so a day with no email does not prove the update stopped. For a warning of your own, use a heartbeat service such as Healthchecks.io: your host adds its link to the server cron line, and the service emails you when the calls stop.
Related
- Cron not working: a checklist
- Setting up a real server cron
- How the hourly auto update works
- Import History and the activity log
If all three checks look right and the listings are still stale, send us a task name and we will compare it against your feed.
