Node.js “node-cron” not running on Google app engine

Question

I have configured this cronjobe using node-cron in my node.js project

const cron = require('node-cron');
cron.schedule('0 0 * * *', () => {

   console.log("CRON: Running");
   // Do someting

});

and deployed project to Google APP engine, this cron normally runs on my local during testing at 24:00 no issue, but on Google APP engine it is not...

Project itself normally deployed to server and running no issues (accessible through web) but cornjobe seems did not triggered at 24:00 by app engine server, i'm trying to understand why?? Seems server was off at moment when no one is using it, or??

Answer 1

This is because the App Engine instance is not necearily running at the time of the execution. (this happends more with Standard as it can scale down to 0)

Therefore a workaround for have Cronjobs in app engine is to have the schedule of this jobs managed by something else, in this case Google Cloud Scheduler which basically is a scheduler for tasks in app engine.

InThis Guide You can see how to create cron job with the cloud Scheduler by the cloud console.