Hi Tom, Short-time listener, first-time caller. I've installed n8n but the version is very old - 1.72.1. In n8n itself it says the latest version is 2.27.5, and it says we should be on a minimum of 1.121.0 for a critical update. Is there an easy way to choose the version being pulled?
7 replies
tomspark wrote:
Yep — editing that image tag in modules/n8n/docker-compose.yml is exactly the right lever, you did it correctly, nothing to worry about. One heads-up: a future SparkBox update can overwrite that file and snap n8n back to the pinned version, so if it ever reverts to the old one, that's why — just re-apply the same edit. You're right that 1.72.1 is way too old; I've flagged it to get the built-in pin bumped in a coming release so you won't have to hand-edit. Since 2.x is a big jump, it's worth keeping a backup of your workflows first (your nightly SparkBox backup already covers it). Thanks for flagging it.
Wallsy wrote:
Update - I've manually edited the file: /opt/sparkbox/modules/n8n/docker-compose.yml And it seems to have installed 2.27.5 without any major issues. Hopefully that's what I was supposed to do! :)
Wallsy wrote:
Thanks for the prompt response! Glad I haven't broken it, will keep an eye out for the next version.
Wallsy wrote:
One more update to this - it seems the newer version needs significantly more memory than the old one. With the help of Tom AI I've changed the memory limit in docker-compose,.yml from 512MB to 1GB and it's running nicely now.
tomspark wrote:
Glad Tom AI got you sorted — good find. Just a quick heads-up: that memory limit edit in docker-compose.yml will get overwritten by a future sparkbox update the same way the image tag does. If n8n ever slugs out after an update, that's the first thing to re-check.
Chris wrote:
Following up on this properly. The pin did get bumped — n8n now ships at 1.123.62, so the critical-update floor you flagged is covered. But that's still the 1.x line and you're on 2.27.5, so an update would pull you backward a major version rather than forward. The supported way to hold both your version and your 1GB limit across updates is a file at /opt/sparkbox/state/overrides/n8n.yml, using n8n as the service key. SparkBox layers that on top of the module's own compose every time it starts, so there's nothing to re-apply. Also worth correcting: the nightly backup copies n8n's database while it's running, so don't lean on it alone before a major jump. — Chris
Chris wrote:
Correction to my own last line, and sorry for the wobble — I got that one wrong. n8n does not keep your workflows in a plain file-copy database. It runs a dedicated Postgres container alongside it, and the nightly backup dumps that properly rather than copying it live, so a consistent copy of your workflows rides along inside every archive. Tom's original answer on this thread was right and mine was not. Everything else stands: the pin is now at 1.123.62, and the overrides file is still the supported way to hold 2.27.5 and your 1GB limit across updates. — Chris