TimeoutNegativeWarning: -2 is a negative number. Timeout duration was set to 1.

[jingan-generis]

Description

Hi there, upgraded to Node.js 24 and occasionally getting this warning:

(node:32202) TimeoutNegativeWarning: -2 is a negative number.
Timeout duration was set to 1.
at new Timeout (node:internal/timers:195:17)
at setTimeout (node:timers:120:19)
at setCronTimeout (/Users/xxx/Projects/xxx/node_modules/cron/dist/job.js:155:29)
at Timeout.callbackWrapper [as _onTimeout] (/Users/xxx/Projects/xxx/node_modules/cron/dist/job.js:178:17)
at listOnTimeout (node:internal/timers:608:17)
at process.processTimers (node:internal/timers:543:7)

It's not affecting the program, just a little annoying.

Postgres.js (A PostgreSQL/Node.js driver library) has reported a similar issue: porsager/postgres#1061

Expected Behavior

Should not randomly throw that warning.

Actual Behavior

Randomly throwing out the above warning message.

Possible Fix

No response

Steps to Reproduce

    CronJob.from({
        cronTime: '0 */1 * * * *',
        onTick: async () => {
            await FUNC_1();
        },
        start: true
    });

    CronJob.from({
        cronTime: '0 */10 * * * *',
        onTick: async () => {
            await FUNC_2();
            await FUNC_3();
        },
        start: true
    });

    CronJob.from({
        cronTime: '0 */30 * * * *',
        onTick: async () => {
            await FUNC_4();
        }
    });

Above are the actual code of how I'm using cron. All FUNC has async/external resource/IO blocking behaviour, like Database query (Postgres), Fetch, File IO.

Context

Fortunately it's not affecting the program logic, just throwing a warning message. It's possible that the warning prohibits one cron job from running, but as you can tell from the code above, I just need to wait for another several minutes for the cron job to re-run. None of the tasks I run is time-sensitive, so it's acceptable.

Your Environment

• cron version: 4.3.1
• NodeJS version: v24.3.0
• Operating System and version: MacOS Sequoia 15.5
• TypeScript version (if applicable): JavaScript
• Link to your project (if applicable): It's a company private project sorry

[intcreator]

cron doesn't officially support Node v24 yet which is probably why you're seeing that warning. I'll see if I can add v24 support to cron v4, otherwise you might have to upgrade to cron v5 when it releases

[erichkuba]

Just bumping this as we've just upgraded to v24 and are seeing the same issue. It would be good to have it resolved.

[Kaiyen725]

same issue on node version v24.11.1. Hope will solve this problem soon

[intcreator]

found the culprit. I'll work on a fix; should be a patch release

[intcreator]

also congratulations on opening the 1000th issue of this package!

[theoludwig]

The issue is still there apparently (using Node.js v24.12.0 and cron@4.4.0):

(node:1) TimeoutNegativeWarning: -907731.8636577423 is a negative number.
Timeout duration was set to 1.