I just created my Project and went to start the Dev server
n8n-node dev
but it keeps timing out after 120 seconds, is there a way to exted the timeout period or somehow see the logs?
Failed to start n8n dev server
└ n8n startup timeout after 120 seconds
The 120-second startup timeout in `n8n-node dev` is a known issue, especially on Windows systems. Here are a few solutions to try:
**Quick fixes:**
• Try running `n8n-node dev --timeout 300` to extend the timeout to 5 minutes
• Clear your npm cache with `npm cache clean --force` and try again
• Check if antivirus software is interfering with the startup process
**For debugging:**
• Run with verbose logging: `n8n-node dev --verbose` to see what’s happening during startup
• Check if port 5678 is already in use by another process
• Try running as administrator if you’re on Windows
If the timeout persists, you can also try the alternative approach of running n8n directly with `npx n8n` instead of using the dev command. According to [docs.n8n.io]( Task runner environment variables | n8n Docs ), you can also configure various timeout settings through environment variables if needed.
The startup timeout often occurs when n8n is trying to initialize dependencies or when there are permission issues with file access on Windows systems.