Scheduled GitHub Actions workflows never trigger (not a fork, public repo, all settings correct)

[yunanita]

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Discussion Details

Hi everyone,
I have a strange issue with GitHub Actions in my public repository, and I wonder if anyone has ever experienced the same thing or has any solutions.

Problem summary:

My repo: yunanita/real-time-arimax (public, not a fork, only one branch main)
All workflows run perfectly when triggered manually (workflow_dispatch) or on push events.
Cron-based workflows (on: schedule: cron:) never ever run—the scheduled event never appears in the Actions tab, not even once, even after several days.
Other repos in my organization work just fine with scheduled workflows.

What I have already tried and checked:

• The workflow files are in .github/workflows/*.yml, and cron syntax is valid (yaml linted).
• No conditionals or restrictions in the workflow.
• No permission or secrets problem (secrets are accessed fine in manual runs).
• The repo is NOT a fork, it’s original.
• Actions permissions are enabled for all workflows.
• I have tried disabling and reenabling Actions in the repository settings.
• Committed multiple times to default branch.
• Created the most minimal workflow to test (just echo on schedule), but still no schedule run ever appears:

name: Test Cron
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "*/1 * * * *"
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: echo "SCHEDULED ${{ github.event_name }}"

• Waited over 12 hours for schedules set to run every minute, 15 minutes, or once a day—nothing ever triggers automatically!

Screenshot:

Questions:

1. Has anyone experienced cron triggers never working on a specific repo while all other manual triggers are fine, and other repos work?
2. Is there any hidden setting or backend issue I might be missing?
3. Any tips before contacting GitHub Support directly?

Thank you so much for any help!

[Daniel-Ric]

Scheduled workflows only run from the workflow file on the repository’s default branch, so first double-check that main is actually set as the default branch in Settings and that the workflow file exists on that branch. Also note that schedule runs are best-effort and use UTC, and very frequent crons like */1 aren’t a great test—try every 15 minutes or hourly and give it a few hours. If other repos in the same org run scheduled workflows fine and this repo still never shows a single scheduled run after confirming the default-branch setup and recommitting the workflow, it’s likely a repo-specific backend or org policy issue, and contacting GitHub Support with the repo name, workflow path, and cron line is the fastest next step.

[SrRyan]

👋 Thank you for reporting the issue with scheduled workflows not triggering. We identified a related change from last week that was rolled back today. Any commit pushed to the default branch will resync the impacted scheduled workflows and resolve any scheduling issues you may be experiencing. If you continue to experience issues with syncing schedules, please reply with a comment including the following:

1. Impacted repository
2. Workflow path and name
3. Cron syntax in the workflow

Note: Schedules that run during periods of high load (e.g., midnight UTC) may be delayed or, if load is sufficiently high, potentially dropped. Please see our docs for further information.

[Scolliq]

While debugging the root cause, you might want a monitoring layer so you are alerted immediately when a scheduled workflow fails to run.

You can add a heartbeat as the last step — if the workflow does not execute, the heartbeat is missed and you get a webhook alert:

- uses: Scolliq/gabe-action@v1
  with:
    ping-url: ${{ secrets.GABE_PING_URL }}

Setup takes about a minute: github.com/Scolliq/gabe