"Item Method" Intermittent Issue

Questions
1

This is an extremely annoying feature/issue of n8n when using pinned data, half the time when you just want to run a single step to test and have all the previous steps using pinned data it throws this error: **

Using the item method doesn’t work with pinned data in this scenario. Please unpin ‘Approval Notification’ and try again.**

An expression here won’t work because it uses .item and n8n can’t figure out the matching item. The node ‘Approval Notification’ didn’t return enough information.

But this error often has nothing to do with the actual issue being flagged which is that it can’t identify the “item” in question, when previously it had no issue. All you have to do to “clear” the issue is rerun the previous node, even though the output data is already pinned.

For example in my current workflow the “previous node” in question is just a notification, it has nothing to do with the “item” method and somehow just running it again fixes the problem in about 50% of cases. It seems that making any slight change to a previous step in a working workflow “breaks” the “item” path somehow even though none of the related data has changed.

2

As a rule to myself, I ALWAYS use named nodes when doing references for example instead of $json I use $(‘Node Name‘). Then I try and avoid item and always change my mappings to .first().json. As long as I do this things never break.

3

But this only works if you are typing nodes in manually, if you drag them from the side panel n8n just decides what the reference is. They should just get rid of relative nodes entirely and default to absolute paths for everything.

1 Like
4

Yeah I agree, it is annoying as it always uses $json, but whhen you decide 30 mins later you want to add another node before one of the nodes, the $json breaks as the data from the new node might be different. @bartv Would be nice to get your input on this

5

Please don’t ping team members for support - we usually don’t have time for this :sweat_smile:

6

Seems like you did have time! What a poor attitude to have when a volunteer “Top Supporter” tags you in. I’ve never heard anything like it! I had to look up your profile to see what your role was and I am aghast that you are the community manager.