Cron Job not triggered by config.xml settings

Question

I have a local module with a cron job configured in config.xml to run once per day at 10:30am:

<sc_followup>
    <schedule>
        <cron_expr>30 10 * * *</cron_expr>
    </schedule>
    <run>                          
        <model>followup/cron::processFollowupEmails</model>
    </run>
</sc_followup>

I also have the system's crontab set up to run cron.php every 5 minutes:

*/5 * * * * php -f /abspath/mysite/cron.php > abspath/mysite/var/log/cron.log

The admin cron settings are:

Lastly, I have cleared the caches.

My issue is that processFollowupEmails() is running once every 5 minutes instead of once per day at 10:30am. What do I need to change in my configuration to achieve that?

Answer 1

It turned out that the above configuration does work for me. My mistake was in not accounting for the time between when the last cron schedule was generated and when the new schedule is generated.

When I was testing processFollowupEmails(), I had the config.xml settings at */5 * * * *. I updated it, but it kept running every 5 minutes until the "generate schedules"/"schedule ahead" settings came around again.

I'm leaving this answer here intead of deleting the question in case any one else forgets about the scheduling ahead.