[GH-ISSUE #1232] Is prolonging the grace time dynamically supported #833

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opened 2026-02-25 23:43:44 +03:00 by kerem · 1 comment

kerem commented

2026-02-25 23:43:44 +03:00

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Originally created by @chogberg on GitHub (Nov 23, 2025).
Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/healthchecks/healthchecks/issues/1232

I can't find an answer to this in the issues or docs. Is it possible to prolong the expected cron execution time?. If I have a cron job that runs every hour and usually takes 10-30 minutes to execute, the grace period needs to be 35 minutes to ensure it completes on time. If the cron fails after 5 minutes, you will notice it after another 30 minutes.

If it is possible to reset the grace period in some way, you could set it to just 5 minutes and extend it by pinging the API with an alive message. So if the process fails, you will know it within 5 minutes from the start or the last alive message.

Thanks for a great application in any case!

Regards
CHogberg

Originally created by @chogberg on GitHub (Nov 23, 2025). Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/healthchecks/healthchecks/issues/1232 I can't find an answer to this in the issues or docs. Is it possible to prolong the expected cron execution time?. If I have a cron job that runs every hour and usually takes 10-30 minutes to execute, the grace period needs to be 35 minutes to ensure it completes on time. If the cron fails after 5 minutes, you will notice it after another 30 minutes. If it is possible to reset the grace period in some way, you could set it to just 5 minutes and extend it by pinging the API with an alive message. So if the process fails, you will know it within 5 minutes from the start or the last alive message. Thanks for a great application in any case! Regards CHogberg

kerem closed this issue

2026-02-25 23:43:44 +03:00

kerem commented

2026-02-25 23:43:45 +03:00

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@cuu508 commented on GitHub (Nov 27, 2025):

No, extending grace time by sending continuous "keepalive" messages is not supported.

If the cron fails after 5 minutes, you will notice it after another 30 minutes.

One thing that may help with this is proactively signalling failures. If the job fails, it sends a failure signal to Healthchecks and you receive a notification right away. There would still be a delay if the job fails in such a way that it does not send the failure signal (or if the job does not start at all).

@cuu508 commented on GitHub (Nov 27, 2025): No, extending grace time by sending continuous "keepalive" messages is not supported. > If the cron fails after 5 minutes, you will notice it after another 30 minutes. One thing that may help with this is [proactively signalling failures](https://healthchecks.io/docs/signaling_failures/). If the job fails, it sends a failure signal to Healthchecks and you receive a notification right away. There would still be a delay if the job fails in such a way that it does not send the failure signal (or if the job does not start at all).