"No encryption key" & "Failed to renew license: renewal failed because current cert is not initialize"

I started getting this error all of a sudden. There was no server update.
I was working on version 1.29.1, started getting pagination errors, came back to n8n a couple of hours later and started getting this encryption error.

I found the encryption key, which I didn’t set myself, and put it in the Environmental Variables. That didn’t work.

Information on your n8n setup

  • n8n version: 1.29.1
  • Database: PostgresSql
  • n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):
    - Running n8n via: VPS → Docker → Caprover: One-Click-App

RAM: 3.82 GB
OS: linux
CPU: 4 cores
Architecture: x86_64
Docker Version: 24.0.7

It looks like your topic is missing some important information. Could you provide the following if applicable.

  • n8n version:
  • Database (default: SQLite):
  • n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):
  • Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app):
  • Operating system:

Hey @unicornParty,

That looks like someone stopped the container for some reason and maybe repulled it, When you set up n8n did you confgure the /home/node/.n8n directory to be mapped to a volume? The Caprover app is not something we support so I am not sure how it has been configured or if it is configured correctly but hopefully you will know about the data folder.

Hi @Jon,

I decided to just start over and reinstalled n8n.
Since it’s a “one-click-application” I didn’t configure anything besides filling out the environment variables. The log tells me that an encryption key has been generated again.
Am I supposed to add all the configuration variables from the documentation?
In the past, I’ve had issues with workflow credentials not being found. I’m not sure if this has to do with my environment variables
new n8n log
CapRover-Server-Dashboard

Hey @unicornParty,

You would only need to add the env options that you need, I can’t read the env options from your screenshot but make sure you have the encryption key option set if the volume has potential to be removed.

1 Like