Okay so I finally I found the problem with running archive.php.
The 503 error is a result of mod_proxy timing out after 30 seconds. (the default timeout for proxy requests)
The problem is that the ProxyTimeout setting used by mod_proxy appears to have no effect in apache 2.4.4
(Either the apache documentation is misleading or perhaps this is a bug)
The solution is to set the mod_proxy timeout using the following method.
<Proxy fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000>
ProxySet timeout=300
</Proxy>
Now I can run the archive.php script via cron again.
The 503 error is a result of mod_proxy timing out after 30 seconds. (the default timeout for proxy requests)
The problem is that the ProxyTimeout setting used by mod_proxy appears to have no effect in apache 2.4.4
(Either the apache documentation is misleading or perhaps this is a bug)
The solution is to set the mod_proxy timeout using the following method.
<Proxy fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000>
ProxySet timeout=300
</Proxy>
Now I can run the archive.php script via cron again.