"n8n doesn't support queue mode with binary data storage" - what does it mean exactly?

[Nick_K_H]

Hello!

Could you please explain - “n8n doesn’t support queue mode with binary data storage. If your workflows need to persist binary data, you can’t use queue mode.” - what does it exactly mean?

Shoud I avoid n8n queque mode if:

1. I process any binary data (from incoming web-hooks for example)
2. or only in case if I write/read binary data from disk?

Best regards,
Nick

[EmeraldHerald]

Hi @Nick_K_H

What this message means is actually this: Scaling binary data in n8n | n8n Docs

Setting N8N_DEFAULT_BINARY_DATA_MODE=filesystem means binary data from your executions isn’t kept in memory, but offloaded to a location on the local hard drive.

Since queue mode usually means using a distributed setup (or in other words, having different machines with their own hard drives), one worker couldn’t read binary data from the other worker – so queue mode users should stick to N8N_DEFAULT_BINARY_DATA_MODE=default in which case binary data is kept in memory (and as part of the execution data)

The use cases you’ve presented are totally fine for queue mode

[Nick_K_H]

thanks!