Hi all,
I want to have an environment where I have an A<>B. When A is live I can work on B and so forth.
When I clone the workflow to have a copy of the latest version, I suddenly have to refresh almost all of my nodes. Almost 100. For example, the supabase logging nodes. But there is nothing wrong, I only have to open it, then it gets the database table and then I can close it. But it’s a slow process and I have to do this many times. If I don’t do it, I can’t even publish the workflow. Feels like a bug in the n8n system. Maybe my application got too big for n8n. But does anyone know a solution for this?
Have you tried import/export instead of cloning/duplicating?
You can also copy all nodes from problematic workflow then paste it into new workflow.
Does that help?
Thanks for your fast answer!
#1 Unfortunately, the Git solution seems to only be available in the Business plan, which would require a monthly “upgrade” with significantly higher costs. Honestly, that feels very odd to me.
#2 Is there an n8n CLI available?
#3 My experience with smaller split-up (sub)workflows is actually that things become less organized and much harder to track. I constantly have to search:
Especially with A/B testing. If I go from 1 workflow to 3 or 4 workflows with A/B variants, I could easily end up with 8 different workflows and versions.
At the moment, I mainly see disadvantages, to be honest. That said, I really do appreciate your advice!
@Bart_Sch
It seems you should re-enter (credentials),
Code node does not need credential, so it’s does not affected…
It’s not even credentials. It’s basically opening the node and close it. Then it’s fixed. But it should be done automatically, unattended, imo.
Sorry I thought I mentioned it’s a cloud instance. But I did not. I can’t use that unfortunatly.
Do you think it will work then? And why?
what the F. I also have nodes with different credentials. So cloning changes the workflow. What an amateur tool is this 
Oh dear, and when I export and import the name changed into exactly the same workflow name too. Almost broke my working one…
Sorry for all the messages. But no download and import for me, some other conflicts too because it clones exactly everything.
Hi @Bart_Sch, thanks for the clarification.
I think the underlying problem may still be credential related, but not in the sense of a bad credential value. Since opening and closing the node makes it work again, it feels more like the cloned node is not resolving or refreshing the credential state correctly until the UI reloads it.
So the Code node itself may be fine, while the credential binding after cloning seems to be the part that is getting stuck.
Thanks again for the details, that helps narrow it down a lot.
I ran into the same headache before, and the only thing that saved my sanity was reselecting the credential on one node, then duplicating that fixed node and copying its JSON over the broken ones. It still feels a bit hacky, but it cut the grunt work way down. Makes me think the clone feature just forgets to sync credential states in the background.
@Bart_Sch
Another safer workaround would be to rebuild the cloned workflow in blocks instead of trying to repair all broken nodes at once. I would create a new empty workflow, then copy a small group of nodes from the original workflow, for example one section or one integration at a time. After pasting each block, I would reselect the credential only once for that block, test it, and then continue with the next block. This is slower than a full clone, but safer than editing 100 nodes manually or changing the exported JSON in bulk, especially on Cloud. It also helps identify which node type or integration is losing its credential state after cloning.
I would keep the original workflow untouched, build the replacement under a temporary name, test each section, and only switch production traffic after the rebuilt version is fully validated.
Thanks for the help all. Really appreciated.
After some testing, I’m going for the Download>Import option after all:
I have to be careful because the name changes to the original workflow Inclined from. And my flow has one webhook that needs to be changed and updated on 1 node after the import but it’s way better than reopening of all nodes like I did first.
Still feels a bit like a workaround and it’s kinda weird that there is no real supported Test/Prod method. I thought this product was for Enterprise. Unfortunately the Git option is for more expensive plan.
Second option is to maybe build some pipeline and clone and update via API or MCP but for now not so much time to figure that out. Was hoping for a build-in method.
Again, thanks all.
Bart
