GitHub Actions scheduled workflow never triggers — manual runs work

[umitguldenezku]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Schedule & Cron Jobs

Discussion Details

Problem: Scheduled GitHub Actions workflow never triggers, but manual execution works

Hello GitHub Community,

I am experiencing an issue with GitHub Actions scheduled workflows in my private repository.

Repository: umitguldenezku/oracle-hermes-automation

Workflow: .github/workflows/oracle-capacity.yml

Default branch: main

1. Problem description

The workflow executes successfully when triggered manually using workflow_dispatch, but it has never started automatically through the schedule event.

The workflow configuration is:

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  schedule:
    - cron: "37 * * * *"

The cron expression was previously set to 17 * * * *, but that did not work either.

The expected behavior is for GitHub Actions to start the workflow once per hour.

The actual behavior is that no scheduled workflow run is created at all.

2. Checks performed

I installed GitHub CLI and verified the workflow state:

gh api "repos/umitguldenezku/oracle-hermes-automation/actions/workflows/oracle-capacity.yml" --jq ".state"

Result:

active

I then checked the scheduled runs:

gh api "repos/umitguldenezku/oracle-hermes-automation/actions/workflows/oracle-capacity.yml/runs?event=schedule" --jq ".total_count"

Result:

0

I also checked recent workflow executions:

Run ID | Trigger | Result -- | -- | -- 42371632627 | workflow_dispatch | success 42371133638 | workflow_dispatch | failure 42370625257 | workflow_dispatch | success

All recorded executions were manually triggered.

3. Troubleshooting already attempted

• Confirmed the workflow is active.

• Confirmed the YAML file exists on the default main branch.

• Confirmed manual execution works.

• Changed the cron expression and committed the change to main.

• Verified the workflow status and run history using GitHub CLI.

• Checked for scheduled executions, but none exist.

The workflow uses an Ubuntu GitHub-hosted runner. It calls Oracle Cloud APIs, but the scheduled trigger does not even create a workflow run, so Oracle is not involved in the scheduling failure.

4. Questions

1. Is there a known GitHub Actions scheduler registration or event delivery issue affecting private repositories?

2. Is there an additional setting required to enable scheduled workflows?

3. How can I verify whether GitHub has registered the cron trigger correctly?

4. Is there a way to force GitHub to re-register this workflow's schedule?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thank you!

[github-actions[bot]]

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[kaushalboii]

Thanks for providing such detailed troubleshooting information.

A few additional checks may help isolate whether this is a scheduler issue or a workflow configuration issue.

1. Check the schedule configuration on the default branch

Make sure the workflow file exists at:

.github/workflows/oracle-capacity.yml

on the repository's default branch (main). Scheduled workflows are evaluated from the default branch.

2. Check the cron timing

Your current expression:

schedule:
  - cron: "37 * * * *"

is valid and should run at minute 37 of every hour in UTC.

As a diagnostic, consider testing a less busy minute, for example:

schedule:
  - cron: "23 * * * *"

This is not a guaranteed fix, but avoids relying on the top of the hour.

3. Check repository activity

GitHub automatically disables scheduled workflows in public repositories after 60 days without repository activity. This specific inactivity rule does not apply in the same way to private repositories, but checking whether the workflow remains enabled is still useful.

4. Check Actions settings

Go to:

Settings → Actions → General

Verify that Actions are permitted and that the repository's policies allow the workflow to run.

5. Check workflow registration

After committing a schedule change to the default branch, allow time for GitHub to register and execute it. Check the workflow's run history using:

gh run list \
  --repo umitguldenezku/oracle-hermes-automation \
  --event schedule \
  --limit 20

If no scheduled runs appear after several expected execution windows, despite the workflow being active and correctly configured, this may require investigation by GitHub Support.

Since manual dispatch works and no schedule-triggered runs are created, I would focus on scheduler registration and event delivery rather than the Oracle Cloud API calls.

Hope this helps!

[umitguldenezku]

Thank you for your suggestions.

We have already completed all the recommended checks and troubleshooting steps, but the issue persists.

Confirmed findings:

• The workflow exists on the default main branch.
• The workflow state is active, verified through the GitHub REST API.
• Manual execution using workflow_dispatch works successfully.
• We have tested different cron expressions and committed the changes to main.
• GitHub Actions permissions are enabled.
• The repository is private, active, and recently created.
• The scheduled workflow run count remains 0.
• We also tested a completely independent, minimal scheduled workflow without any Oracle API calls or external dependencies. That workflow did not trigger either.

We have also noticed recent community reports from other users experiencing similar problems, including workflows that previously ran every 15–60 minutes but now appear to trigger only every 4–6 hours or not at all.

Based on these results, we strongly suspect an issue with GitHub Actions scheduler registration or scheduled event delivery rather than our workflow configuration.

Could someone from the GitHub team investigate whether there is an ongoing scheduler issue affecting private repositories?

It would also be helpful to know whether there is a known incident, an estimated resolution, or a reliable way to verify that scheduled triggers are registered correctly.

We would prefer to keep the automation entirely within GitHub Actions rather than introduce additional external scheduling services.

Thank you.