Workflows Disappeared Unexpectedly — Need Help Understanding the Cause + Recovery Options

Questions
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Hi team,
I’m facing a serious issue on my self-hosted n8n setup and would appreciate guidance.
A large number of workflows suddenly disappeared from my instance. These workflows were working normally before the incident, and no one on the team deleted anything. There were no API calls, no scripts, and no automated processes that could remove them.
When I checked the logs for the timeframe of the incident, I found repeated SQLite errors related to failed savepoints. Here’s a sample:

QueryFailedError: SQLITE_ERROR: near “-”: syntax error
query: “SAVEPOINT typeorm-1”,
parameters: undefined,
code: ‘SQLITE_ERROR’

driverError: Error: SQLITE_ERROR: near “-”: syntax error
at handler (/root/n8n/node_modules/src/driver/sqlite/SqliteQueryRunner.ts:137:29)
at replacement (/root/n8n/node_modules/sqlite3/lib/trace.js:25:27)
at Statement.errBack (/root/n8n/node_modules/sqlite3/lib/sqlite3.js:15:21)

The same block repeats multiple times around the incident window.

What I need help with

I’m trying to understand:

  • Whether these transaction/savepoint errors can lead to workflows disappearing

  • Whether SQLite or TypeORM can silently drop/reset workflow records

  • If n8n can switch to a new/empty DB file in specific failure conditions

  • What internal mechanism could remove multiple workflows without any deletion trigger

  • If there is any backup, recovery, or method to retrieve missing workflows using previous DB snapshots, internal storage, or cache

  • Steps I can take to diagnose the root cause and attempt restoration

This is a critical issue because a significant number of workflows vanished at once, and I cannot identify any clear deletion event.

Any help or insights from the community or maintainers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Describe the problem/error/question

What is the error message (if any)?

Please share your workflow

(Select the nodes on your canvas and use the keyboard shortcuts CMD+C/CTRL+C and CMD+V/CTRL+V to copy and paste the workflow.)

Share the output returned by the last node

Information on your n8n setup

  • n8n version:
  • Database (default: SQLite):
  • n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):
  • Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app):
  • Operating system: