Persistent bad decrypt Error with Credentials Even After Complete Environment Reset and Correct Encryption Key Configuration

[Parintele_Damaskin]

I would delete the config file, and keep the env variable.

Since you gave a fresh start, it should work.

But here the LEGEND itself explains exactly this error you got.

ERROR:Credentials could not be decrypted. The likely reason is that a different "encryptionKey" was used to encrypt the data

The error message actually describes exactly what the problem is. The “encryptionKey” must have changed. To be more exact, did you either not persist the ~/.n8n folder or the file ~/.n8n/config (in which the key is stored) got deleted. In case you did set the encryptionKey via the environment variable N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY, then the value of that variable must have changed. There is sadly no way of getting the data back without the original key (after all, is exactly that the reason for having it…

Cheers!