License lost after updating and can not reactivate

Questions
1

Since apparently licenses not sticking trough updates is not a bug…

Bug Description

I had previously had a license key activated. After upgrading from 1.118 to 1.121, the license key seems to have been lost. When I went to activate the key again, I get the following error:

Activation failed
Failed to activate license: Connection Error: The expression evaluated to a falsy value: assert(webidl.is.ReadableStream(stream))

I have an “Activate Key” and “Manage Plan” in the Usage and Plan page. I am using the free key for the extra features.

I have tried restarting my instance and everything else I can think of short of digging through the database.

To Reproduce

  1. Go to settings

  2. Go to Usage and Plan page

  3. Notice there is no key active

  4. Try to activate key from email (both clicking on the button and copy/paste

  5. Receive error

Expected behavior

License key stays active through updates.

Debug Info

Debug info

core

  • n8nVersion: 1.121.3

  • platform: npm

  • nodeJsVersion: 22.21.0

  • nodeEnv: undefined

  • database: sqlite

  • executionMode: regular

  • concurrency: -1

  • license: community

  • consumerId: 6fbcaa40-2261-4327-adf9-ba69c527c61c

storage

  • success: all

  • error: all

  • progress: false

  • manual: true

  • binaryMode: memory

pruning

  • enabled: true

  • maxAge: 336 hours

  • maxCount: 10000 executions

client

  • userAgent: mozilla/5.0 (windows nt 10.0; win64; x64) applewebkit/537.36 (khtml, like gecko) chrome/142.0.0.0 safari/537.36

  • isTouchDevice: false

security

  • secureCookie: false

Generated at: 2025-11-30T02:32:15.372Z

Operating System

Debian 13

n8n Version

1.121.3

Node.js Version

22.21.0

Database

SQLite (default)

Execution mode

main (default)

Hosting

self hosted

2

Hey @LilTrublMakr !

Try reset your license with the command:

n8n license:clear

Then restart n8n and try activating again from Settings → Usage & plan → Enter activation key.

Cheers!

3

Have tried the provided steps and restarted. I am still receiving the same error:

Activation failed
Failed to activate license: Connection Error: The expression evaluated to a falsy value: assert(webidl.is.ReadableStream(stream))

I have also tried activating this on Brave and Firefox with the same result.

4

I have now updated to 1.122.4 and issue is persisting.

5

After playing around some more, I have found that in the console log of the browser, I get POST https://n8n.domain.tld/rest/license/activate 400 (Bad Request).

When going to https://n8n.domain.tld/rest/license/activate, I get the error Cannot GET /rest/license/activate

6

This error :

assert(webidl.is.ReadableStream(stream))

looks ike more a Node.js runtime error… maybe incompatibility between versions.

Either try to upgrade n8n to latest stable, or downgrade your nodejs…

7

N8N has been latest stable.

I have tried the minimum node required (18.17 as found here), the latest supported (11.6.2), and the latest of all major versions in between including 18.20.8, 19.9.0, 20.19.6, 21.7.3, 22.21.1, and 23.11.1.

All come back to the same error. This is clearing browsing cache and cookies in between each node version.

I am going to try and start a new instance and try from fresh which is what I was trying to avoid.

8

You read my mind :slight_smile: …

Have fun!