Ollama node "keep alive" setting has no effect on local n8n install

Questions
1

Hi there!

Describe the problem/error/question

I have n8n 1.78.1 running locally on my raspi and using it with Ollama. All works fine except that I run easily in a timeout situation with longer prompts as the ollama (chat) model node throws an error after exactly 5 minutes.
I suspect that that the default “keep alive” setting causes this problem, but setting it to 50m oder -1m does not have any effect.

What is the error message (if any)?

{
  "errorMessage": "fetch failed",
  "errorDetails": {},
  "n8nDetails": {
    "time": "26.2.2025, 20:40:04",
    "n8nVersion": "1.78.1 (Self Hosted)",
    "binaryDataMode": "default",
    "cause": {}
  }
}

Please share your workflow

Share the output returned by the last node

{
  "errorMessage": "fetch failed",
  "errorDetails": {},
  "n8nDetails": {
    "time": "26.2.2025, 20:40:04",
    "n8nVersion": "1.78.1 (Self Hosted)",
    "binaryDataMode": "default",
    "cause": {}
  }
}

Information on your n8n setup

  • n8n version: 1.78.1
  • Database (default: SQLite):
  • n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):
  • Running n8n via (Docker: UmbrelOS 1.3):
  • Operating system: Linux Debian 6.6.51
2

The Ollama Chat Model node has a default timeout limit of 5 minutes (300,000 ms) for requests, which can be insufficient for processing longer prompts, especially on resource-constrained devices like a Raspberry Pi.

3

Thanks for the quick reply, Daniel!

I noticed this default timeout and tried to override it with this “keep alive” setting in the Ollama Chat Model Node:

image
image485×429 17 KB

I tried to use a negative number as well to disable it, but no effect.

Unfortunately the node always stops after the default 5 minutes:

image
image555×296 20.1 KB

For some reason I have two nodes “Ollama Model” and “Ollama Chat Model” but both behave exactly the same.

And I also updated to n8n v1.80.3 today, but no difference…