Desktop app ask for login

Hello everybody…
I recently installed the desktop app for windows… I used it on the first day, but now a week later it keeps asking for login and password all the time…
Is the desktop app not free?
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Hi @Davi_Dias, welcome to the community!

The desktop app is free (as long as you use it in line with the n8n license).

If it’s asking for a username + password this would be the credentials you have set up when first launching it. If you’re using the recent desktop version you can, however, easily reset your username and password by clicking AuthReset password…

You can then simply click Skip setup for now on the setup screen when it appears again to prevent the app from setting a new username + password (it’s fairly pointless on a desktop computer anyway).

If you don’t have that option on your side you might need to download the latest version of n8n desktop first.

Edit: found the issue for me. It is caused by having more than one user on your windows computer. (in my case). It seems the software cannot differentiate.

I uninstalled the desktop app, installed the latest version and still, when I try to reset the password it crashes and loads the same sign in form.

Any ideas how to solve this?

Thanks!

Hm, this option should work but I think @dickhoning also had trouble with the reset the other day. Perhaps @ivov can help with this?

You could in theory also try to use the CLI command for the password reset, although I think it’d perform the same steps as the UI options. I’ll also try to reproduce this myself later.

Is there another way to access the form and register? I don’t mind signing in every time, I just really need to work on my project.

Thanks!

You could try running the CLI command directly as suggested in my message above. Assuming you are using Windows these would be the steps:

  1. Make sure all instances of n8n are closed (restart your machine to be sure nothing is running in the background)
  2. Backup your database (just in case), it should be a file named database.sqlite in the C:\Users\<Username>\.n8n directory (replace <Username> with your actual Windows username
  3. Then (assuming you are on Windows) run the below command in your terminal:
C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Programs\n8n\resources\app\node_modules\n8n\bin\n8n.cmd user-management:reset

You should get a response of Successfully reset the database to default user state. like below:

On the next start of n8n desktop, you should then see the “Set up owner account” screen on which you can click the “Skip setup for now” button to avoid setting a new password.

If this fails, you can also try this approach shared by @Shirobachi (again making sure to take a backup beforehand): Password recovery - #3 by Shirobachi

Thank you!

The CLI error sent me down a rabbit hole that solved it: node.js wasn’t installed !?!

Thank you again :slight_smile:

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Oh, I did not realize that a separate Node.js installation is required for the desktop app to work. Anyway, I am really glad to hear it’s working again for you!