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Why is my scheduled task running one day early? Weird!! RRS feed

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    Hello,

    Creating a Windows scheduled task is not new to me.  However, I don't understand why this one job on my Windows 10 machine keeps starting one day early in addition to running it again at its scheduled time.  For example, I have a task to reboot a machine every Friday @8pm.  In reality, it runs @8pm on Thurs & Fri.  I only have 1 trigger and 1 action.  

    Here's a screenshot of this job attritubes.  The second screenshot shows it executed on 7/9 (Thu) and it will execute on 7/10 (Fri).  This job was created on 7/3/20.


    Does anyone know why?





    • Edited by Sidney L Friday, July 10, 2020 5:45 PM
    Friday, July 10, 2020 5:40 PM

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    HI
    1.if we create a new task scheduler ,will the same issue happen on new task scheduler ?
    2.is any boby use your computer on 7/9/2020 to run the schedulered task ?


    Monday, July 13, 2020 3:29 AM
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    3.what's the schedulered task in history item? 

    4.is there 
    event viewer\windows logs\
    application
    system
    application adn service logs\microsoft\windows\task scheduler


    Best Regards
    Andy YOU
    Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
    If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.



    Wednesday, July 15, 2020 2:22 PM
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    Hello,

    The screenshot above shows 7/3 under "Start:".  That's the day when I re-created this job and had deleted the previous one.  So the problem persists.  No one was on my computer on 7/9.

    Wednesday, July 15, 2020 2:46 PM
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    Here's a screenshot of the current state of that task along with its history.  

    The job was disabled after the first run (Thurs) of last week.  It tells me the next run is 7/17 which is this Friday.  I will re-enable it Thurs. morning and see what will happen.

    Wednesday, July 15, 2020 2:53 PM
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    This is just becoming more strange.  I now have no clue what this is doing.  Mentioned in my previous reply that I'd re-enable this job on Thurs morning (7/16/20) which I did.  Now it's 9.00PM Thurs and I just checked to see if it ran.  Look at what I found this time.

    It says "It did not launch the task as it missed its schedule" !!!

    What!??

    Friday, July 17, 2020 1:02 AM
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    HI
    5.can you enter winver in command prompt on win10 computer and look the os version and os version number ?[for example windows 10  enterprise 1809 (os build 17763.316)]

    6.if we install latest window update ,will the same issue happen ?
    7.is the issue computer a laptop or desktop ?did you take it from one Time zone to another time zone ?
    8.what's the setting in conditions item and settings item in your issue task scheduler,can you share the picutre ?
    9.did your reboot command like below ?
    shutdown /r /t 0


    Best Regards
    Andy YOU
    Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
    If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.



    Saturday, July 18, 2020 10:07 AM
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    5. see screenshot

    6. i can't.  it's a managed pc.

    7. desktop.  i did not travel.

    8. see screenshot

    9. shutdown /r /f



    • Edited by Sidney L Saturday, July 18, 2020 1:06 PM
    Saturday, July 18, 2020 1:04 PM
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    Do we have anyone else out there experienced similar problem?

    Please respond if you had.



    • Edited by Sidney L Saturday, July 18, 2020 1:07 PM
    Saturday, July 18, 2020 1:07 PM
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    Do we have anyone else out there experienced similar problem?

    Please respond if you had.



    I have tried to help several users who reported task scheduling problems. We have never been able to pinpoint the issue. In most cases, deleting and recreating the task has fixed it. Another possible culprit is the "Configure for" setting and the "Synchronize across time zones" settings.

    Here are links to the other threads. They contain 2 Powershell scripts that I wrote to try to determine if the "next run time" was getting changed by *something*, and to see how the task was being triggered. You can give them a try to see if they can help you.

    https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/4b78aee7-c8db-4a48-ac6d-be74b031a5ea/scheduled-task-running-twice-ontime-then-1-hour-later

    https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/c0be6139-5198-46b2-9135-4e6dae49adaa/scheduled-task-firing-on-the-wrong-day-consistently?forum=winserver8gen

    https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3e444529-aa58-41cd-80a1-3115865cb883/windows-server-2019-standard-task-scheduler-trigger-anomaly?forum=winservergen

    If you export the problem tasks XML and paste it back here I can create a test task and see if I have the same problem.  

     
    Saturday, July 18, 2020 5:07 PM
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    Hi MotoX80,

    Attached is the XML.  

    Please let me know what you can discover.  I appreciate it.

    ---------------

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
    <Task version="1.4" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
      <RegistrationInfo>
        <Date>2020-07-03T19:43:18.9769805</Date>
        <Author>UserRemoved</Author>
        <URI>\PDM\Reboot PC Weekly</URI>
      </RegistrationInfo>
      <Triggers>
        <CalendarTrigger>
          <StartBoundary>2020-07-03T20:00:00</StartBoundary>
          <Enabled>true</Enabled>
          <ScheduleByWeek>
            <DaysOfWeek>
              <Friday />
            </DaysOfWeek>
            <WeeksInterval>1</WeeksInterval>
          </ScheduleByWeek>
        </CalendarTrigger>
      </Triggers>
      <Principals>
        <Principal id="Author">
          <UserId>UserRemoved</UserId>
          <LogonType>Password</LogonType>
          <RunLevel>LeastPrivilege</RunLevel>
        </Principal>
      </Principals>
      <Settings>
        <MultipleInstancesPolicy>IgnoreNew</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
        <DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>true</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
        <StopIfGoingOnBatteries>true</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
        <AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
        <StartWhenAvailable>false</StartWhenAvailable>
        <RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>false</RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>
        <IdleSettings>
          <StopOnIdleEnd>true</StopOnIdleEnd>
          <RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
        </IdleSettings>
        <AllowStartOnDemand>true</AllowStartOnDemand>
        <Enabled>true</Enabled>
        <Hidden>false</Hidden>
        <RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
        <DisallowStartOnRemoteAppSession>false</DisallowStartOnRemoteAppSession>
        <UseUnifiedSchedulingEngine>true</UseUnifiedSchedulingEngine>
        <WakeToRun>false</WakeToRun>
        <ExecutionTimeLimit>PT72H</ExecutionTimeLimit>
        <Priority>7</Priority>
      </Settings>
      <Actions Context="Author">
        <Exec>
          <Command>C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe</Command>
          <Arguments>/r /f</Arguments>
        </Exec>
      </Actions>
    </Task>

    ---------------

    Monday, July 20, 2020 12:45 PM
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     It goes in a PDM subfolder, correct? Instead of a shutdown, I'm just going to run "cmd.exe exit". I defined it and launched my watcher script. The next run time looks good. 

    Is your "next run time" correct right now?

    FYI, this machine is Win10 Home 2004. 

    Monday, July 20, 2020 1:35 PM
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    1. PDM is the subfolder

    2. The "Next run time" is always correct.  In my case, it always shows Friday @8pm.  Running a day ahead is the problem.

    3.  Win10

    Monday, July 20, 2020 4:29 PM
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    Can you create a "Reboot PC Weekly 2" task that runs at 7PM on Friday and executes "cmd.exe exit" to test if that task also runs a day early? 

    Will you be logged on at 8 pm on Thursday to see if the pc reboots early? If you add a "/t 120" to the arguments, that gives you 2 minutes to abort the reboot by manually running "shutdown /a". You could even schedule an "Abort reboot" task that runs at 8:01 Thursday and executes "shutdown.exe /a". It would be interesting to see if that runs on Wednesday. 

    Do you have a second PC where you could test this?  

    If you are able, can you run my TaskWatcher.ps1 script to see if the scheduler changes the next run time or just ignores that and runs it a day early.


    • Edited by MotoX80 Monday, July 20, 2020 5:12 PM
    Monday, July 20, 2020 5:10 PM
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    Sure, I'll create this 2nd test job and let you know in the next few days.

    Monday, July 20, 2020 6:15 PM
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    HI

    if you create a new local account and log on this issue win10 by using this account , then create a new task ,will the same issue happen?
    Create a local user or administrator account in Windows 10
    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026923/windows-10-create-a-local-user-or-administrator-account

    Best Regards
    Andy YOU
    Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
    If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

    Thursday, July 23, 2020 2:15 PM
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    MotoX80,

    I created a "Test" job to run your command.  It's interesting to note the "Last Run Time".

    Will know @8pm today to see if it runs.


    Thursday, July 23, 2020 2:54 PM
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    Had an incorrect setting in my last screenshot.  I only picked Thursday.  I just updated to Friday.  The "Next run time" now says Friday, 7/24  @8pm.
    Thursday, July 23, 2020 5:18 PM
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    I'm not sure if the "Test" job actually tried to run on 7/23 @8pm because my Reboot job kicked in at exactly 8PM last night.  The problem persists for this reboot job.  I am going to delete the "Test" job and re-create it to have it run this Sunday @8PM. I will update you to see if it will run on Saturday.

    Friday, July 24, 2020 12:13 PM
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    I have good news and I also have bad news. The good news is that the task ran last night at 8pm on my laptop. So it's not just your machine that has the problem. The bad news is that I don't see anything wrong with the task definition. So if this is a real bug in the task scheduler code, then you will need to contact Microsoft product support to get that fixed. This is a peer support forum and the majority of us do not work for Microsoft. We don't have access to the OS code. You can also use the Feedback Hub app to report the problem, but don't expect an immediate response. 

    I'm going to create some more tasks that run on different days and see if they all have the same problem. Maybe we're missing something. 

    In the interim, Save this as FridayReboot.ps1 and put it in some folder. Then modify your task to run Powershell.exe and in the arguments put the full path to this script. That will prevent your pc from rebooting on Thursday's.  

    if ((get-date).DayOfWeek -eq 'Friday') {
    "Ok to reboot"
    Restart-Computer -Force
}

    If you haven't run any PS scripts you may need to set the policy first. 

    Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned


     

     

     
    Friday, July 24, 2020 1:18 PM
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    Hi MotoX80,

    I appreciate you spending the time to troubleshoot this for me and we both now are scratching our heads why we have a BUG in Windows 10!!!  I would imagine there are tons of people out there who also rely on or may have needs to run jobs Task Scheduler on their Win10 machines.  If our scheduled task runs a day early, this is HUGE problem and I can't imagine the frustration for the general user population who may have this same problem.

    I'll take a look at your PS script as well.

    Thanks

    Friday, July 24, 2020 1:29 PM
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    Where are you located? I'm in Pennsylvania, so 8:00 pm is 12:00 GMT time. That would make it "Friday".

    I'm going to modify that task and select "synchronize across time zones" and see what affect that has. Think I'll create another task and set it to run at 8:05 pm and see what happens. 


    • Edited by MotoX80 Friday, July 24, 2020 2:25 PM
    Friday, July 24, 2020 2:25 PM
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    I'm also in East Coast.  I read about "Synchronize across time zones".  Don't remember all the details now.  I think it's meant when you have multiple machines across Time Zones and this is where it would come in to play.  So I didn't think it would work thus I didn't check this box.  Yeah... please let me know how it goes on your side.

    Friday, July 24, 2020 3:15 PM
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    I found this...

    The setting "Synchronize across time zones" is quite tricky and not self-explanatory at all.

    As you were saying, it will launch the task as if not summer time was active throught the year.

    For example, if you are located in Paris (Central Europe Time = CET = UTC+1) and you have set somewhere in December (out of summer time period) a job to start at 20:00, the server will know to start it at the equivalent 19:00 UTC time. This job will run as expected at 20:00 local time, until the summer time will be in place. Somewhere during the summer time period (let's say in June) the task will still attempt to start at 19:00 UTC and this means that the task will start at 21:00 local time (Central Europe Summer Time = CEST = UTC+2).

    If you define the job during the summer time, at 20:00 => this is translated to 18:00 UTC => this means that out of summer time period (let's say November), the job will still start at 18:00 UTC = 19:00 local time (CET).

    In conclusion, with "Synchronize across time zones", depending on when you've defined the job, it might run +1 hour or -1 hour in advance. Therefore, do not select this option unless you really need it.

    Friday, July 24, 2020 3:59 PM
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    Creating a basic scheduled task should NOT be this difficult!  :)

    Friday, July 24, 2020 4:22 PM
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    We'll see what happens tonight. (Tasks don't actually reboot.) 

    Friday, July 24, 2020 4:50 PM
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    I've been changing the days and so far none of these tasks has run a day early. 
    Monday, July 27, 2020 11:39 AM
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    MoboX80,

    This is very interesting ...

    So I created a "Test" job to run your "cmd.exe exit" last Friday.  I scheduled it to run Sunday @8am.  Although it did not execute the job on Saturday (a day ahead), it actually did attempt to run it but according to history, it did not meet the conditions.  This behavior is different from the reboot job.  My reboot job still runs on Thursday even though the job is scheduled from Friday.



    • Edited by Sidney L Monday, July 27, 2020 12:50 PM
    Monday, July 27, 2020 12:49 PM
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    Looks like you set the task to only run when the user is logged on. 
    Monday, July 27, 2020 1:16 PM
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    OK, I will re-do the test.

    Are you saying once you've checked "Synchronize across time zones", this fixed the problem?

    Monday, July 27, 2020 1:37 PM
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    I guess we'll know on Thursday. My Reboot PC Weekly task has that set, the others that run at 7:55, 8:05 and 8:10 do not. 
    Monday, July 27, 2020 4:29 PM
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    The "Reboot PC Weekly" task did not run tonight. It had "Synchronize across time time zones" set. I will uncheck that but it will take another week to validate that it fixes the problem. 

    Friday, July 31, 2020 12:17 AM
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    Hi,

    Thanks for continuing to test this.  Here's what's happening on my end.  This Wednesday I created a "Test" job to execute your "cmd.exe exit".  Job scheduled to run this Friday @1pm.  I just checked and it did not run on Thursday.  I don't have the "Synchronize across time time zones" checked.  I created this job exactly the same way as my problem weekly reboot job.  Now I'm all confused why this test job did not run on Thursday whereas my weekly reboot job continues to run on Thursday @8pm as well as Friday @8pm.  This week will be the 3rd week running the reboot job.  When 8pm comes tonight, I expect my machine to reboot.


    • Edited by Sidney L Friday, July 31, 2020 12:03 PM
    Friday, July 31, 2020 12:02 PM
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    Sorry I got my day mixed up.  Today is Friday, 7/31 not Thursday.  I'm working on too many projects at once.

    Anyway here's the latest 'state' of my Task Scheduler

    The weekly reboot job DID NOT run last night.  The "Last Run Date" says 7/23 which was last Thursday.  I manually disabled the job last Friday because I didn't want my machine to reboot again.  That's why it says "7/23" under last run date.  If I didn't disable it, it would probably say 7/24.

    Now I'm really confused why it didn't run last night!





    • Edited by Sidney L Friday, July 31, 2020 12:19 PM
    Friday, July 31, 2020 12:13 PM
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    I apologize again.  I'm making too many mistakes today.  In my last screenshot, I noticed I hadn't re-enable my weekly reboot job.  That explains why it didn't run when I just checked now (Friday, 7/31 @8.30pm).  Just re-enabled it.  Sorry we have to wait and see what happens next Thurs & Fri.

    Saturday, August 1, 2020 12:36 AM
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    HI
    "Sorry we have to wait and see what happens next Thurs & Fri."
    if you still have your below picture issue ,we can run process monitor and select"enable boot logging" before specified time on Thursday,I think it will record who trigger this task scheduler on thursday.
    are you sure this issue task trigger successfuly and your system has been reboot at that time (7/9/2020)?

    Process Monitor v3.53
    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon



    Best Regards
    Andy YOU
    Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
    If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.


    Tuesday, August 4, 2020 3:10 PM
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    Andy,

    The problem is not the rebooting. The issue is that the task is scheduled for Friday and runs on Thursday. I was able to recreate the problem on my Win10 Home 2004 laptop. I have tried scheduling on other days but they run as expected. The task is scheduled for 8PM EST which is midnight GMT time. 

    If you want to help validate our theory, schedule a task for your local time that corresponds to midnight GMT time (Friday morning).   Use the XML for thee task that was posted. Use any account, and just run "cmd.exe /c".

    Tuesday, August 4, 2020 11:34 PM
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    MotoX80,

    It's Thursday, 8/6 after 8PM EST.  Guess it's time for me to provide another update.


    The reboot job continues to run one day early.  It's going to run again as scheduled tomorrow 8/7.  It
    just ran it.  However, your test job (cmd.exe exit) has not started.  I configured it to run every Friday @1pm.

    Not sure if 1pm vs. 8pm makes any difference here.  

    Andy, do you see my problem now?

    Friday, August 7, 2020 12:12 AM
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    I do not have "Synchronize across time zones" checked and the task ran a day early.

    August 6 is a Thursday. The task is scheduled for Friday.

    Can anyone else verify this? Schedule the task to run at your local time that corresponds to 12:00 AM GMT on every Friday. 

    Friday, August 7, 2020 12:24 AM
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    I have reported this on the Feedback hub. If you can recreate the problem please add feedback.

    https://aka.ms/AA97jy0

    Friday, August 7, 2020 12:35 AM
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    Sidney, 

    Since my other tasks did not run a day early, I would expect that if you changed the start time of your reboot task to 08:01, or 08:05, that should be a workaround for your problem.

    Friday, August 7, 2020 12:57 PM