# Configurations lost after restart

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/configurations-lost-after-restart/1041>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [24 June 2018 21:44 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/configurations-lost-after-restart/1041 "2018-06-24T21:44:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![davidcgu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@davidcgu](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/davidcgu)\
**Post date:** [24 June 2018 21:44 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/configurations-lost-after-restart/1041/1 "2018-06-24T21:44:06Z")

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Good night

Since some time ago I loss the configurations for telegram node (node bot key) and email node (user/pass).

I’m running all latest versions of everything, curiously on telegram node the key appears empty however on the email node is showing a users and some passw but should not be valid, I need to write it down again to make it work.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance

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**Author:** ![davidcgu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@davidcgu](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/davidcgu)\
**Post date:** [25 June 2018 18:15 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/configurations-lost-after-restart/1041/2 "2018-06-25T18:15:11Z")

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Any idea? I’m getting a bit lost on this

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**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [25 June 2018 18:48 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/configurations-lost-after-restart/1041/3 "2018-06-25T18:48:52Z")

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Hi - not sure what the problem you are describing is. Any node with credentials will not show the exact password back to the browser client (we use a dummy of length 8) - as that would be a security no-no - so it may look different length but will be ok - as long as you haven’t actually lost your creds from the back end. But they won’t get lost over a restart.

(Note: the way that the projects feature handles creds is slightly different so you need to follow the instructions to migrate them)

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [25 June 2018 20:08 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/configurations-lost-after-restart/1041/4 "2018-06-25T20:08:03Z")

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The other (likely) possibility is the system has lost the key to decrypt your credentials so they got wiped. In 0.18.0-0.18.5 (or maybe .6) we would stop your flows in this scenario and require you to manually recover the system. This caused too many complaints so a fix was made to restore the pre0.18 behaviour where it continues to run without your credentials.

If you hadn’t set `credentialSecret` in your settings file, then it generates a secret and stores it in `.config.json` under the key `_credentialSecret`. Something must have happened to your .config.json file for the \_credentialSecret to have been lost - and as it was a system generated one, once its gone, its gone.

So you may well have to re-enter your credentials again. But before you do, make sure you have set `credentialSecret` in your settings file to some known value and then restart Node-RED. That way you will have the key to decrypting your credentials and not rely on the system generated one.

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**Author:** ![davidcgu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@davidcgu](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/davidcgu)\
**Post date:** [25 June 2018 21:14 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/configurations-lost-after-restart/1041/5 "2018-06-25T21:14:45Z")

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knolleary you were right, don’t ask me exactly how it was to fix it because I made a hundred of movements… what is clear I have recovered my settings.js to a previous one I had as backup, after this and reboot I have to log again all my credentials, I made some reboot again and minor changes and now seems to be solved.

Or I changed something by mistake or something was wrong into there.

The important… is back to work.

Thanks guys