Workflow doesn't start automatically even though it's already active

[desding]

I built a workflow to automatically upload an Updated File in my Google Drive to my Voiceflow Account’s Knowledge Base (for AI Chatbot purposes).

The problem is the workflow doesn’t start automatically even though the workflow always Active and the Poll Times is set to every minute (i changed to every 5 minutes to test if it’s gonna fix the problem and apparently its not working too) unless i click on the “Test Workflow” button. It’s really not practical at all for now because it’s not executing automatically. I greatly appreciate for the help on this issue

I attach my workflow and all of the nodes here: (i used the latest stable version 1.88.0)

[jcuypers]

Hi,

where do you run your workflow? cloud / self-hosted?

Did you try an alternative via cron settings?

Did you set the workflow TZ explicitly? (not sure if this is actually used)

And also, do you save your changes before activating the flow again (since I see the save button is still available).

reg,
J.

[desding]

Hi J, thank you for your reply.

I run it on n8n Cloud.
And i always save my changes before activating, i just screenshot-ed right before i saved the workflow.

Also, i don’t use Cron setting because they don’t suit my use-case and are not cost-effective.

For the “set the workflow TZ explicitly”, can you elaborate more please? i’m not quite understand on this topic

[jcuypers]

Hi,

Regarding the cron interval, I don’t think there are any cost implications, its just another way of configuration the schedule interval.

like so: Every X Minutes */5 * * * * Every 5 minutes.

reg,
J.

[desding]

I see, that’s nice to know! Can you help me set the cron interval step-by-step from the Settings? Because i don’t see any interval configuration that i can change there

[jcuypers]

Hi,

for the settings you need to set the correct timezone for your use case

The cron settings are configured on the google drive trigger by setting it to custom and giving the configuration:

reg,
J.

[desding]

Now that i’ve thinking about it. I think each Cron interval counts towards a workflow execution, even if there is no file to be processed by the rest of the workflow. And why i used the Google Drive Trigger because its only counts a workflow execution when it finds a file to execute the workflow on (when it detects an Updated File).

So i think its why im concerned about the cost-effective aspect

[jcuypers]

Hi,

You might be right (imho it would be kind of strange since both are actually polling mechanism). I have no experience on the cloud instances, but if this is the case it should be added to the documentation since i didn’t see it there . for now we can just try it to see if it makes any difference?

reg,
j.

[desding]

So far, here is the result based on your recommendation:

1. I used your Cron Expression and there is no problem in executing the workflow. But it cannot be saved because “The polling interval is too short”
   

   
   
   
   

2. So i’ve tried to changed the Cron expression to 0 5 **** and there is no problem on executing the workflow too but it also cannot be saved because “Too few fields”
   

   
   
   
   

[jcuypers]

Hi, you are missing the spaces in between the * i think

Please copy and paste exactly this:
*/5 * * * *

check here for examples

Schedule Trigger node documentation | n8n Docs

reg,
J.

[desding]

i’ve copied and pasted exactly that. and it shows the same notification too

[jcuypers]

Hi,

very strange. i asked Gemini to tell me exactly the same and it should be correct.

Might be a bug?

I might be good for N8N to look at this, since i’m out of ideas tbh. Maybe it cannot be used like this or something else is wrong.

reg,
j.

[desding]

alright, i’ll wait for another help for this issue then.

thank you so much for all your help J:)

[desding]

Hey J,

just an update:
my workflow is executed automatically. but only when i set the Cron setting to 0 * * * * (every hour on the hour)

but still, i’m glad that progress has been made on this issue. thanks to you , J:)

it would be more optimal if it could executed automatically every minute (which is what i needed in the first place for my workflow), if anyone knows a solution for this problem, i would greatly appreciate the help:)

[jcuypers]

Hi,

I was testing here with a scheduled trigger with the same 5 minute cron (it works and can be saved).

Later on i will try with a google drive node for the same. If i cannot make it to work or it cannot save, this would explain some things.

according to me, and this might be BS (as i haven’t looked into the source code): even the non-cron settings will be converted to the cron-variant behind the scenes. so if there is an issue on the cron part. the every X minutes with the non-custom will inherently also be flawed.

reg,
J.

[jcuypers]

Hi,

I can confirm there seems to be a bug with the cron setting on the google drive node. I can save but not activate (the error says: interval needs to be larger than 1 minute).

the same cron expression works with scheduled trigger.

reg,
j.

[desding]

i see. alright, i’ll use the Scheduled Trigger then. thank you J, you’re a life saver:)