Confused re: Schedule node executing at the same time every day

[mmac]

I’m using the Schedule node in two workflows, and getting unexpected results as to when it executes.

The first is set to execute every 53 hours, at minute 45:

But it is executing every 24 hours, at minute 45:

The second is set to execute every 27 hours, at minute 45:

But it is also executing every 24 hours, at minute 45:

I have read the documentation on the Schedule node but don’t see what could be causing this based on my settings. I also searched the forum and saw a lot of discussion re: the old cron node, but not this problem for the Schedule node.

I don’t really care what minute it executes at, so I tried putting nothing in the “Trigger at minute” box in the Schedule node, but that just made it revert to minute 0.

I have other workflows that use Schedule as triggers, but they are set to run every 1 hour, every 10 mins, and every 5 mins. Those all execute properly / as I expect based on my settings in the Schedule node.

Am I misunderstanding how to set up the Schedule node?

Thank you!

Information on your n8n setup

• 0.202.1 self hosted, installed with Docker per the n8n documentation.

[MutedJam]

Hi @mmac, the schedule node is essentially a combination of the old cron node and the interval node. I remember the latter having trouble when intervals where longer than the next largest unit (as in more than 60 minutes, or more than 24 hours). I too found this super confusing but found out it was the expected behaviour back then

Perhaps you can consider either using a proper cron expression to run your workflow or switching to a different unit? E.g. instead of running your flow every 53 hours, simply run it every 2 days?

I know this isn’t a great experience, so please accept my sincere apologies for the confusion this causes.

[mmac]

I adjusted the workflow to execute every 21 hours, but it’s still executing at odd times.

My settings:

The times it’s executed:

So it’s executing at hour 21 of every day, not 21 hours apart. And then I have the minute set to 40, and it’s trying to execute again at 00:40 every day. It’s failing on the 00:40 time because it’s a duplicate status on Twitter - Twitter doesn’t allow the same post to be posted 2x in a row - but it shouldn’t be executing then in the first place.

The workflow:

[mmac]

Bumping this. I’m still experiencing the Schedule Trigger not executing as specified, as illustrated in my Dec 6 post.

[MutedJam]

Hi @mmac, thanks for the reminder! I have create a simplified test workflow on my own instance running the current version 0.208 of n8n to verify whether I’m able to reproduce this.

[MutedJam]

Hi @mmac, I was able to reproduce this problem and have added this to our bug tracker for a closer look by the engineering team.