So after losing half my hair in the process i got N8N set up on DigitalOcean.
However, i’ve run into an issue. The imgur API i use for image hosting is throwing back a 403. Upon closer inspection it appears they block any data center / cloud IP’s.
What are my options to avoid these issues ? Do i need a proxy, or does DigitalOcean have some sort of solution i can purchase through them for my setup?
Any input much appreciated!
I typically manage my domains with cloud flare and use their proxy.
It is free and you don’t need to transfer the domain, just point the NS record to cloud flare
I’ve never had issues with regular API usage while using their proxy. Might also be worth reaching out to the apis support since that seems like a strange restriction
That makes a lot of sense. Do you think its worth moving my domains from squarespace to Cloudflare for that reason alone ?
Also are there any limitations with the proxy? Speed throttling etc…
You don’t have to transfer your domains, you just manage the DNS records there. So you can try before making the commitment to move them.
Personally I use cloudfare for all my DNS records, as well as for a lot of my clients. There are no downsides like you mentioned. You shouldn’t notice any differences between your squarespace DNS records and cloud flare ones
Thanks Liam.
Does this mean i should delete the A record from squarespace that points at DigitalOcean and recreate it on Cloudflare ?
Go to cloudflare, make an account if you don’t have one.
Follow the instructions where it says to add a website. It will give you instructions and usually import all of your existing DNS records.
Don’t delete anything that it doesn’t tell you to or you’ll have downtime
Cheers for the advice Liam - got everything working just fine.
I hope you don’t mind a follow up question but my N8N UI seems to be misbehaving. I click my workflows but my browser seems to treat it like some sort of draggable element and instead doesn’t click through to my workflow. Any ideas? If i click violently enough over and over again it sometimes clicks through and takes me to the workflow…
What browser are you using?
Can you try an alternative like chrome if you aren’t using chrome. Also try clearing your cache.
If neither of those work, can you share a screen recording?
Im using Chrome - and if it makes any difference i can’t replicate the issue when using its hosted by N8N on their platform - only self hosted. I’ve tried clearing my cache as well as using an incognito browser.
You can find my recording here: Screen Recording 2025-04-29 at 14.00.11.mp4 - Google Drive
Edit: i’ve also tried updating N8N to the latest version, but the issue persists.
Is your device a touchscreen?
No - Imac. Which i guess makes it even weirder.
Would it be worth just deleting the droplet and reinstalling ?
Let’s try one more thing first, you will need to set the env variable
N8N_SECURE_COOKIE=false
Just make sure you remove that after you’re finished testing.
Then restart your instance and try to directly connect via the IP address and see if it works like that
To directly connect you with use your-ip-address:5678 in the URL bar
This will check to see if your reverse proxy is causing the issue
Thanks Liam. I also gave that a try with no success - the same issue occurs.
I tried consulting OpenAI’s new o3 model earlier which got me to check the dev tool console and it came to this conclusion from looking at pointer events:
Why it happens:
n8n’s editor code defines a small “drag threshold” in pixels/time. Any pointer-down to pointer-up with even a 1–2 px movement (or a press longer than ~80 ms) is interpreted as the beginning of a drag, not a click. On modern trackpads/high-DPI mice, tiny micro-jitters or normal click durations can exceed that threshold.
Why it doesn’t affect n8n.cloud:
The hosted platform runs a build (v1.91.0+) with a higher built-in drag threshold and pointer-handling tweaks. The open-source :latest Docker image (currently v1.90.2) still uses the tighter, original threshold.
Where it’s fixed:
The fix landed in v1.91.0 (beta channel / :next tag), which bumps the threshold to better tolerate micro-movements and longer clicks—matching n8n.cloud behavior.
Would this make any sense for this to be the case? I still find it weird that it only happens self hosted.
i suspected it was an issue to do with a certain trackpad or mouse, being that it is registering the click for longer than it actually is happening, but that wouldn’t explain why it only happens in self-hosted (since the code is the same for both).
Are there any errors or anything in the dev tools console?
So by some quirk of fate i managed to fix it.
I changed the docker image from latest back to 1.89.2 and the issue is gone. I even went back to latest just to double check and the issue came back. I don’t know what this means going forward but presumably their dev team are aware of this bug?
Excuse any of that not making any sense, i don’t have a clue what i’m doing.
Thanks for your perseverance Liam - hugely appreciated!
no problem. I have been talking to someone on the n8n team to get their thoughts, seems like they havent run into this, but im sure if its an issue on their side they’ll get it fixed. The version switching will help narrow it down