Scheduled tasks start 6 hours late

Question

Issue
Two scheduled tasks set to start at 11:30pm both started at 5:30am, the next morning. Looking for a reason why this might happen. Perhaps something related to time zones?

Background
This is regarding the home version of W10.

I have two scheduled tasks. FYI they make backups for my computer - one for changes and one to mirror all files under \users\folder.

These ran successfully for years on my old computer and I just setup these same tasks on a new one.

I am in US Eastern timezone (+5:00).

Resources
I attached the XML file of one task. I edited it to anonymize the Author (\computer name\account), and UserID.

Sorry - don't have scheduler history. Forgot to activate it until today.

Also:
Bonus points if you can also tell me why these tasks took 3 hours to complete when they typically took minutes on the older and MUCH slower computer.

Thank you!

Caveat
Sorry if I entered "tags" that meaningless. I have no idea what the available tags are, and which ones would be relevant to my issue. I originally posted this on the MS Community but was asked to post it here, so I am probably in the wrong place.

---

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Task version="1.4" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
<RegistrationInfo>
<Date>2021-10-03T10:12:06.1982993</Date>
<Author>COMPUTERNAME\ACCOUNT</Author>
<URI>\BACKUP-Mirror</URI>
</RegistrationInfo>
<Triggers>
<CalendarTrigger>
<StartBoundary>2021-10-03T23:30:00</StartBoundary>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
<ScheduleByDay>
<DaysInterval>1</DaysInterval>
</ScheduleByDay>
</CalendarTrigger>
</Triggers>
<Principals>
<Principal id="Author">
<UserId>S-1-1-11-111111111-111111111-111111111-1111</UserId>
<LogonType>S4U</LogonType>
<RunLevel>HighestAvailable</RunLevel>
</Principal>
</Principals>
<Settings>
<MultipleInstancesPolicy>IgnoreNew</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
<DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>true</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
<StopIfGoingOnBatteries>true</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
<AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
<StartWhenAvailable>true</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>P1D</ExecutionTimeLimit>
<Priority>7</Priority>
</Settings>
<Actions Context="Author">
<Exec>
<Command>C:\BackupTools\MirrorBackup.cmd</Command>
</Exec>
</Actions>
</Task>

Answer 1

I modified a test VM that I had to sleep after 3 minutes. In doing that I noticed an "Allow wake timers" option. In control panel, check your pc to see if it's set to enable.

In the task settings I unchecked the first 2 items under Power, and selected Wake the computer to run this task.

See if that works for you.

Update: It worked when I set the task to run with my Admin account and with a "normal" Testuser account. And with no one logged on to the desktop.

Answer 2

Please post your feedback in the applicable section so that the problems can be addressed:

From your earlier post:
""Caveat
Sorry if I entered "tags" that meaningless. I have no idea what the available tags are, and which ones would be relevant to my issue.""

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/content/idea/post.html

Most viewers typically cannot figure out the tags without guidance

Enter this tag:
Q&A
or
qna-feedback

Answer 3

Recap

Two scheduled tasks to make backup copies of docs, pixs, etc. at night to external drive. Ran perfectly for years on old computer. Will not run as scheduled on new computer. Windows 10 Home version on both computers.

Tried so far

Enabled History
Each day there is an event, with level Warning, that says "Task Scheduler could not launch task "\BACKUP-Changes" as scheduled. Instance "{2a339c02-bbc9-4609-b59c-d53534d161c4}" is started now as required by the configuration option to start the task when available, if schedule is missed." This doesn't really say anything other than "Finally getting around to doing what you wanted hours ago".

Changed Conditions > Wake the computer from Disabled to Enabled
Did not help. Both jobs are set to start at 11:30pm and today I see they both ran just after I logged in around 9:30am (i.e., the next day). General > Run whether user is logged in or not is Enabled.

Next to try

Triggers > On a schedule > Synchronize across time zones from Disabled to Enabled

General > Run with highest privileges from Enabled to Disabled (to match the setting on the old computer where everything ran just fine)

Answer 4

This change

Triggers > On a schedule > Synchronize across time zones from Disabled to Enabled

did not help. Jobs again started when I logged in this morning.

The more I think about it, the more I am concerned...jobs scheduled by apps (Microsoft, Adobe, security, updates, etc.) may not run as scheduled.

Can anyone recommend how to get help with this? It seems there are many MS forums...am I in the wrong one?

Answer 5

Does the task need to run as your account? Can you use SYSTEM?

I don't know if this will help or not, but I wrote a Powershell script to monitor the next run time of a task. That would require leaving an account logged on to monitor your backup task. Or define another task to monitor your backup task. You would have to modify the script to write to a file instead of just console output.

One thing that it will do is to keep an eye on the time of day clock. If your pc is going to sleep, it will detect a big change in the clock and report that.

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