We recently encountered this exact issue while setting up a client integration between n8n and Odoo, and it took some debugging to figure out why things were just not working. Even though the credentials we entered into n8n for the Odoo API seemed correct — including the username, password (or API key), and site URL — the connection continued to fail. At first, we thought it might be a bug or something on the n8n side, but the solution was actually much simpler.
The issue turned out to be related to the database name, which acts as your Odoo instance identifier when connecting via the API. It’s a required field in the n8n Odoo API credentials setup, and if it’s not exactly right, the authentication will fail without a clear explanation.
Here’s what finally worked for us:
- In Odoo, go to
Settingsand enable Developer Mode (Activate Developer Mode). - Once Developer Mode is on, look at your user icon in the top-right corner
- You’ll see a small pop-up with technical details, including the exact database name (your instance). It might be slightly different from what you expect or what’s shown in your site URL.
- Copy that name exactly as shown, and paste it into the “Database Name” field in n8n when setting up your Odoo API credentials.
As soon as we used the correct instance name in n8n, the integration worked immediately — no more credential errors, and no need to troubleshoot the API itself further.
Hopefully this helps others who are stuck with what seems like a strange bug but is really just a tricky detail related to your Odoo database name.