Troubleshooting

Diagnose and resolve common configuration issues.

Start here

vendor/bin/typo3 temporalcache:verify

The command checks the indexes and columns the queries need, the two strategy names, and the time slots when harmonization is enabled. It reports which check failed and exits with 1. See Verifying the setup for the full list of checks.

Cache not updating

Symptoms

Temporal content does not appear or disappear at the scheduled time
Menus show pages whose starttime has not been reached

Checks

Which timing strategy is active?
```
vendor/bin/typo3 temporalcache:analyze
```
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Only dynamic expires the cache by itself. scheduler relies entirely on the scheduler task, and hybrid does for whichever content type is routed to it, so check that the task exists in the Scheduler module and that cron is running it. See Scheduler task.
Do the indexes exist?

The extension ships them in ext_tables.sql; TYPO3 creates them during the database compare, not at installation time.
```
SHOW INDEX FROM pages WHERE Key_name LIKE 'idx_temporalcache%';
SHOW INDEX FROM tt_content WHERE Key_name LIKE 'idx_temporalcache%';
```
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Expected on both tables: idx_temporalcache_starttime over (starttime, sys_language_uid) and idx_temporalcache_endtime over (endtime, sys_language_uid). If they are missing, run the database compare rather than creating them by hand:
```
vendor/bin/typo3 extension:setup
```
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Admin Tools → Maintenance → Analyze Database Structure does the same from the backend.
Is the record actually visible?

The transition queries skip records that are deleted or hidden, and they filter on the language of the current context. A hidden record's starttime never triggers anything.
Turn on debug logging.
```
advanced.debug_logging = 1
```
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```
grep TemporalCache var/log/typo3_*.log | tail -50
```
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With dynamic timing, one entry per page cache generation shows the lifetime that was written and which maximum capped it.

High database load

Symptoms

Slow page generation with timing.strategy = dynamic
Many MIN(starttime) / MIN(endtime) queries in the slow query log

What the extension queries

The dynamic strategy runs two MIN() queries per monitored table — one for starttime, one for endtime — on every page cache generation. With the two default tables that is four queries. Each table registered through TemporalMonitorRegistry adds two more.

The site-wide lookup used by global and per-content scoping is cached for the duration of the request; the two lookups of per-page scoping are not.

Options

Make sure the indexes above exist — without them these are full table scans.
Set timing.strategy = scheduler to remove the queries from page generation entirely. This needs the scheduler task; read Scheduler task first.

Check the query plan:

EXPLAIN SELECT MIN(starttime) FROM pages
WHERE starttime > UNIX_TIMESTAMP()
  AND hidden = 0 AND deleted = 0
  AND sys_language_uid = 0;

The plan should use one of the idx_temporalcache_* indexes instead of scanning the table.

Changing scoping.strategy does not reduce this load: under dynamic timing every scoping strategy performs the same kind of lookup, and per-content performs the site-wide one.

Harmonization not working

Symptoms

The Content tab shows no harmonization column or no suggestions
Timestamps stay where they were

Checks

harmonization.enabled = 1. While it is off, the service returns every timestamp unchanged and the backend module hides the column.
The slots parse. Entries must be HH:MM or H:MM with hours 0-23 and minutes 0-59; anything else is dropped silently, and with no valid slot left nothing is harmonized. temporalcache:verify reports the parsed slots when harmonization is enabled.
The tolerance is large enough. A timestamp is only moved when its nearest slot is at most harmonization.tolerance seconds away.
```
Slots 00:00,12:00 with tolerance 3600:

11:30 → nearest slot 12:00, 30 min away  → harmonized to 12:00
10:30 → nearest slot 12:00, 90 min away  → left at 10:30
```
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harmonization.tolerance = 0 harmonizes nothing at all. The label in ext_conf_template.txt calls it "no limit", which is backwards.
The distance is measured within the day. 23:30 is far from a 00:00 slot, not close to the next day's.
Harmonization is invoked, not automatic. Nothing rewrites timestamps when an editor saves a record. Use Harmonize selected in Tools → Temporal Cache → Content, or:
```
vendor/bin/typo3 temporalcache:harmonize
```
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Scheduler task

This version registers no scheduler task type, so the task cannot be created in System → Scheduler. Scheduler task describes what that means for the scheduler and hybrid timing strategies.

If a task type has been registered on your installation, verify that the Scheduler itself runs:

crontab -l | grep scheduler
vendor/bin/typo3 scheduler:run

Configuration not taking effect

Typos in strategy names are not errors. ScopingStrategyFactory and TimingStrategyFactory activate the strategy whose name matches the configured value and fall back to the highest-priority tagged strategy — global and dynamic — when none does. A misspelled per-contnet therefore behaves exactly like the default. temporalcache:verify flags both values as INVALID.

Out-of-range values are clamped, not rejected. advanced.default_max_lifetime of 0 or less is skipped in favour of 86400.

Two configuration sources. The Extension Manager writes to config/system/settings.php; config/system/additional.php is read afterwards, so an assignment there overrides the Extension Manager value. Check both files before concluding that a setting is ignored.

Getting help

Collect before reporting:

vendor/bin/typo3 extension:list | grep temporal_cache
vendor/bin/typo3 temporalcache:verify
vendor/bin/typo3 temporalcache:analyze
grep TemporalCache var/log/typo3_*.log | tail -50

Report at GitHub issues with the TYPO3 version, the extension version and the output above.

Next steps

Optimization strategies - What each setting does
Examples & presets - Complete configuration examples
Dashboard - What the backend module reports
Performance considerations - Performance implications