Pasting single nodes in

[jvmx]

I’m running into an issue when trying to paste a single node into my existing n8n workflow. Sometimes it works perfectly—just paste in the JSON and the node appears as expected. But other times, nothing happens at all, and I can’t figure out why.

I suspect it may have something to do with the structure of the JSON itself, but even after spending time researching and comparing different examples, I haven’t found a consistent reason why it fails.

Here’s an example of a simple node I tried to paste (which doesn’t work):

{
  "parameters": {
    "conditions": {
      "string": [
        {
          "value1": "={{$json.query.policy_id}}",
          "operation": "isNotEmpty"
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "name": "Check Form Submission",
  "type": "n8n-nodes-base.if",
  "typeVersion": 1,
  "position": [450, 300],
  "id": "2"
}

Has anyone experienced this? Are there hidden requirements or schema details I might be missing?

[Carl_Carter]

I am getting the same and would love to know the answer. Would save a lot of time in configuration

[BramKn]

The nodes that you are pasting are manually edited in the json? Or are you copying them from n8n directly?

Normally it would indeed be something in the json that it doesnt like.
I am not at a pc right now so cannot check on this example. Will try to remember and do that later.

edit:
I tried this, and I do see it is an old version of the node, which makes it a bit tricky to validate.
Also you get more than just a node object if you copy it from n8n, is probably a good idea to also include that when pasting.

[Wouter_Nigrini]

It’s because the json youre trying to paste is not complete. Have a loop at the difference below of a single IF node

{
“nodes”: [
{
“parameters”: {
“conditions”: {
“options”: {
“caseSensitive”: true,
“leftValue”: “”,
“typeValidation”: “strict”,
“version”: 2
},
“conditions”: [
{
“id”: “f049a828-857f-4373-96c5-8b7fc252e847”,
“leftValue”: “”,
“rightValue”: “”,
“operator”: {
“type”: “string”,
“operation”: “equals”,
“name”: “filter.operator.equals”
}
}
],
“combinator”: “and”
},
“options”: {}
},
“type”: “n8n-nodes-base.if”,
“typeVersion”: 2.2,
“position”: [
220,
0
],
“id”: “36b51449-c0ba-4fc9-9c7f-6f490dba60ed”,
“name”: “If”
}
],
“connections”: {},
“pinData”: {},
“meta”: {
“templateCredsSetupCompleted”: true,
“instanceId”: “5f9454edf75abe00f50552bc9d9692801f917a52f9bb142bafe9d70baa014b60”
}
}

[jvmx]

Thank you for the input, and I sure hope it leads me to the solution, and I think it might.

I tried posting this very JSON into N8N, and it did not paste. But when I took the double quotes away, it worked out nice and clean. ( And oh, wow, when I post it in here in the community, it even shows up. Totally cool.)

[Wouter_Nigrini]

It only really works when I paste it in a code block but I wanted to show you the json structure required. The problem when pasting without the code block is that this forum platform will render the quotes differently “ vs "

The key here was to have the nodes array wrap the node in the json