@KevinTheJedi
Thank you very much for getting back to me.
I was finally able to speak directly to someone at my hosting provider today, and I can confirm that:
- They were able to dig up one support ticket from 2017 regarding the URL rewriting problem with
.htaccess
that is preventing me from using rcron.php
. They do not know what the root cause was and they do not have a solution.
- The latest version of PEAR is installed in a default directory on this shared hosting server, it cannot be disabled or uninstalled, and if any PHP script references a PEAR library without using at least a relative path, then the version that is installed by default will be called, and this could conceivably cause a conflict.
- The problem with port 465 not being accessible was acknowledged but not discussed in depth because 587 can be used.
- The problem with scripts (including cron jobs) executing via browser but not via CLI or cron job with internal server path was acknowledged, but they do not know what the root cause is, and we decided not to put more work into finding a solution because the hosting provider will soon be migrating all of my files and databases to an entirely new server system, so we will wait to see if this solves these problems.
So basically what I got from the hosting provider was a big "sorry, our bad", which is a refreshing change of pace from the constant stream of "did you try turning your computer off and back on again" suggestions.
Thanks again for all your help! 🙂