Hello Mike,
This is, indeed, a hosting issue. I can think of a few potential sources of the problem but as I am not your host I can't help you with it or even do as much as offer a reassurance that my
guesses are even close to what is going on:
- Wrong path in the CRON command line. Please take a look at the Scheduling Information page of Akeeba Backup. The part after /path/to/php should be /home/scuffha3/public_html/cli/akeeba-backup.php. If it's not, please give SG's support the proposed command line so that they can fix your CRON job.
- Wrong path to the PHP executable. The Scheduling Information page displays /path/to/php but this has to be replaced with the real path to PHP CLI (not PHP CGI, there's a big difference). SiteGround should be able to tell you what it is. It's probably something like /usr/local/bin/php5-cgi or /usr/bin/php which you are supposed to use instead of /path/to/php in your command line.
- Permissions issues. I am not sure to what, though, as the "Unable to create lock file" message is out of context. Normally the support technicians at SG should know.
You know, if all else fails, ask the SG support techs to escalate. They have an excellent team which is more than capable of tackling a CRON setup issue (I've met them in their offices last year). Perhaps you just ended up being served by a rookie technician who failed to realise that he needed some help fro above with this?
Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Lead Developer and Director
🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!