Time Trigger Workflow Not Consistently Activating in n8n

[Inphinity_Design]

Hi everyone,

I’m running into an issue with my time-triggered workflows in n8n.

• My workflow is active, but sometimes the time trigger doesn’t fire at the scheduled times.
• When I manually execute the workflow, everything runs perfectly.
• Occasionally, deactivating and reactivating the workflow makes it work, but not reliably.
• I also noticed that sometimes activating from the main overview panel works better than activating from inside the editor.
• I’m running n8n Cloud on an Ubuntu machine (Hostinger), version 1.109.1.

My goal is to have the time trigger work seamlessly and consistently, like a clock. Are there best practices for setting up or activating workflows with time triggers to ensure they run reliably?

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

This below is the trigger which i bleive its simple and should work…

[fahmiiireza]

Hi there, i would suggest you to use the option custom (cron) on the time trigger, i find it to be more reliable

to figure out what is a cron and how to use it you can definitely ask any kind of LLM and they would undestand how to do it

hope it helps!

[Inphinity_Design]

Thank you @fahmiiireza - i will try cron method
However that’d make me feel quite uncomfortable to not being able to use native time trigger of the node and just be reliant with the cron expression which is not very friendly to change quickly..

Is there really not other solutions/tips to use native time/day/min selection in the time trigger node?

[cutecatcode]

@Inphinity_Design

Occasionally, deactivating and reactivating the workflow makes it work, but not reliably.

Can you share the execution when you activate the workflow from executions tab? Maybe we can look for something from there

[Inphinity_Design]

Sure - how can i do that ? execution list screenshot?
Thank you for your support @cutecatcode

[cutecatcode]

Find out the executions without Labs icon (Aside Exec.ID), then screenshot the workflow by clicking the workflow name

[Inphinity_Design]

Unfortunately there are non without the lab icon - this workflow seems never activated by its own..

[cutecatcode]

So it might be caused by the timezone.
Try to set the timezone to your timezone by adding GENERIC_TIMEZONE to your env file or compose.yaml file.
for example: GENERIC_TIMEZONE=Asia/Jakarta

Try with an example to your near time, add +1 or +2 mins after to see if it’s working or not.

[Inphinity_Design]

Im testing with cron at the moment and will definitely use the timezone option in env file afterwards and let you know. Thank you very much for the idea @cutecatcode

[cutecatcode]

You’re welcome mate!
Tell me if my solution able to solve your problem, and feel free to mark my message as Solution, so other user can easily find the solution with the same problem as yours:)

[Inphinity_Design]

Sure! Thanks @cutecatcode

Just set my new time zone to check if it will work.

Another note: cron method also worked, even thuogh its not very user frienedly its working:)
@fahmiiireza

[Inphinity_Design]

Yes!
For botrh solutions - its working!

• Cron works perfectly if you have no setup custom time zone in compose.yaml file
• Once i setup the time zone, normal time/days/min trigger works like a gem!

Thank you both @fahmiiireza @cutecatcode

[Inphinity_Design]

Unfortunately, the workflow is still not functioning as intended.

The time zone appears to be set correctly in the time trigger.

However, it is supposed to trigger every three days, yet it is currently triggering every day. I am not sure why it is behaving this way.

Any ideas?

@cutecatcode