# Flow changes not surving a reboot :(

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [28 October 2025 09:44 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525 "2025-10-28T09:44:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 17\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cymplecy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cymplecy/32/2773_2.png) [@cymplecy](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cymplecy)\
**Post date:** [28 October 2025 09:44 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/1 "2025-10-28T09:44:13Z")

</div>

I had this happen once before (I don't reboot my main machine very often) but when it happened I just put it down to some glitch in the matrix but it#s happened again ☹

I have a flow that looks out for files xxx (1).scad and renames them to xxx.scad

In the past few weeks I added ability to launch exec script to auto-generate an .stl file from it

I had to power cycle the house yesterday (to reset EV charger) and then yesterday I realised that my flow modification had gone and when I checked date of flows.json it was dated 18th October ☹

Going try a bit more attention in future to try and work out what's going on

Hopefully my NVME drive hasn't gone read-only!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Colin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/colin/32/17040_2.png) [@Colin](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Colin)\
**Post date:** [28 October 2025 10:13 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/2 "2025-10-28T10:13:24Z")

</div>

Backup the .node-red directory to a USB stick or similar and do a full power cycle, with power off for 30 seconds. Reboot and check the flows.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cymplecy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cymplecy/32/2773_2.png) [@cymplecy](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cymplecy)\
**Post date:** [28 October 2025 10:25 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/3 "2025-10-28T10:25:11Z")

</div>

Just trying out a few things first  
e.g. I've made changes and deployed but the datetime of my flows hasn't changed

```auto
simon@simon-HP-Desktop-M01-F1xxx:~/.node-red$ ls -l --sort=time
total 3372
drwxr-xr-x 6 simon simon 4096 Oct 28 10:01 context
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 1281506 Oct 18 17:37 flows.json
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 387659 Oct 16 11:44 package-lock.json
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 2307 Oct 16 11:44 package.json
drwxr-xr-x 598 simon simon 20480 Oct 16 11:44 node_modules
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 203 Jul 24 17:47 flows_cred.json
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 14445 May 31 11:26 alert.mp3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 1549106 Nov 20 2024 flows.oldjson
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 20488 Dec 20 2023 settings.js
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 6746 Sep 12 2023 alexaFile.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 20502 Sep 10 2023 settings1881.js
drwxr-xr-x 2 simon simon 4096 Aug 30 2023 storage-9999d6bdbd001279
drwxr-xr-x 4 simon simon 4096 Aug 30 2023 node-red-matter
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 109222 Dec 2 2022 multicam.png
drwxr-xr-x 3 simon simon 4096 Jan 28 2022 lib

```

Just making sure I'm looking at the right machine 🙂

I've also added a backup flow for this machine. I didn't previously have one as my main machine is generally just an NR playground and doesn't run any of the house IoT stuff

[edit] But of course the backup won't be any good if the flows.json file isn't actually being updated on the computer drive.  
I've had Pi SD cards go read only but hopefully my 1TB NVME hasn't!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kuema](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/kuema/32/6542_2.png) [@kuema](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/kuema)\
**Post date:** [28 October 2025 11:50 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/4 "2025-10-28T11:50:51Z")

</div>

Can you check your settings.js for the `readOnly` option?

Something like `readOnly: true`

Just a thought... 🤔

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [28 October 2025 12:18 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/5 "2025-10-28T12:18:11Z")

</div>

do a ls -la to also show hidden files... what dates are on the flows backup files ? (Sadly you've done a deploy since so they may be overwritten)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cymplecy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cymplecy/32/2773_2.png) [@cymplecy](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cymplecy)\
**Post date:** [29 October 2025 08:12 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/6 "2025-10-29T08:12:55Z")

</div>

```auto
simon@simon-HP-Desktop-M01-F1xxx:~/.node-red$ ls -la --sort=time
total 6408
drwxr-x--- 90 simon simon 73728 Oct 29 03:00 ..
drwxr-xr-x 6 simon simon 4096 Oct 28 10:01 context
drwxr-xr-x 7 simon simon 4096 Oct 18 17:37 .
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 1281506 Oct 18 17:37 flows.json
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 1281505 Oct 18 17:37 .flows.json.backup
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 81959 Oct 16 11:45 .config.nodes.json
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 82069 Oct 16 11:45 .config.nodes.json.backup
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 387659 Oct 16 11:44 package-lock.json
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 2307 Oct 16 11:44 package.json
drwxr-xr-x 598 simon simon 20480 Oct 16 11:44 node_modules
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 2054 Jul 30 14:30 .config.users.json
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 2061 Jul 30 14:30 .config.users.json.backup
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 203 Jul 24 17:47 flows_cred.json
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 263 Jul 24 17:47 .flows_cred.json.backup
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 163 Jun 10 18:10 .config.runtime.json
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 133 Jun 10 18:10 .config.runtime.json.backup
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 14445 May 31 11:26 alert.mp3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 1549106 Nov 20 2024 flows.oldjson
-rw-rw-r-- 1 simon simon 1549351 Nov 20 2024 .flows.json
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 20488 Dec 20 2023 settings.js
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 6746 Sep 12 2023 alexaFile.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 20502 Sep 10 2023 settings1881.js
drwxr-xr-x 2 simon simon 4096 Aug 30 2023 storage-9999d6bdbd001279
drwxr-xr-x 4 simon simon 4096 Aug 30 2023 node-red-matter
-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon simon 109222 Dec 2 2022 multicam.png
drwxr-xr-x 3 simon simon 4096 Jan 28 2022 lib

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cymplecy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cymplecy/32/2773_2.png) [@cymplecy](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cymplecy)\
**Post date:** [29 October 2025 08:15 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/7 "2025-10-29T08:15:47Z")

</div>

readOnly not set

```auto
    /** If you installed the optional node-red-dashboard you can set it's path
     * relative to httpNodeRoot
     * Other optional properties include
     * readOnly:{boolean},
     * middleware:{function or array}, (req,res,next) - http middleware
     * ioMiddleware:{function or array}, (socket,next) - socket.io middleware
     */

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Colin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/colin/32/17040_2.png) [@Colin](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Colin)\
**Post date:** [29 October 2025 08:41 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/8 "2025-10-29T08:41:42Z")

</div>

Restart node red in a command window and check the output to make sure you are using the flows file that you think you are.

Are you absolutely certain that the dir listing you have shown is for the same pi that you are accessing via the node-red editor?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cymplecy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cymplecy/32/2773_2.png) [@cymplecy](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cymplecy)\
**Post date:** [29 October 2025 08:47 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/9 "2025-10-29T08:47:16Z")

</div>

> [@Colin](#):
>
> Are you absolutely certain that the dir listing you have shown is for the same pi that you are accessing via the node-red editor?

"absolutely" no 🙂 but all clues point to me looking at the flows on this (my main desktop HP machine)

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/3X/5/0/50a8aa4ba254f91bf6b25e70dcb92a08de985ece.png)

Not going to restart NR/machine until I get a working backup system running again

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jbudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f8ce5/32.png) [@jbudd](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/jbudd)\
**Post date:** [29 October 2025 08:54 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/10 "2025-10-29T08:54:32Z")

</div>

It looks odd that `context` has a newer timestamp than `.`

Is .node-red or any of it's subdirectories a link to a different file, on a network drive maybe?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cymplecy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cymplecy/32/2773_2.png) [@cymplecy](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cymplecy)\
**Post date:** [29 October 2025 09:06 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/11 "2025-10-29T09:06:32Z")

</div>

> [@jbudd](#):
>
> Is .node-red or any of it's sub-directories a link to a different file, on a network drive maybe?

This is my main desktop machine that I'm typing this on

NR is just in the standard /home/username/.node-red folder

I start it up manually each time I reboot by simply opening new terminal window  
 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/3X/4/5/45a390e384494a66561f526173fdc54cc94fd6c4.png)

I'm in no illusion that it is probably me doing something wrong but by golly, I'm stumped as to what that is 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jbudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f8ce5/32.png) [@jbudd](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/jbudd)\
**Post date:** [29 October 2025 09:39 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/12 "2025-10-29T09:39:04Z")

</div>

> [@jbudd](#):
>
> It looks odd that `context` has a newer timestamp than `.`

A chatbot explained to me that it's perfectly normal for a subdirectory to have a more recent timestamp than it's containing directory.

> [@cymplecy](#):
>
> I start it up manually each time I reboot by simply opening new terminal window  
> ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/3X/4/5/45a390e384494a66561f526173fdc54cc94fd6c4.png)

That is maybe a bit unusual but it should work. If Node-red crashed it wouldn't restart but you would see a notification in the editor.

I was going to suggest `echo hello > ~/.node-red/testfile`, rebooting and seeing if it's still there, and trying to read the file from Node-red, but

> [@cymplecy](#):
>
> Not going to restart NR/machine until I get a working backup system running again

Your filesystem isn't full? `df -h`

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cymplecy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cymplecy/32/2773_2.png) [@cymplecy](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cymplecy)\
**Post date:** [29 October 2025 09:41 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/13 "2025-10-29T09:41:39Z")

</div>

Progress!

I've found that my flows.json is being saved in my /home/simon folder instead of /home/simon/.node-red

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/3X/c/4/c42ba0492d2441018d9b4dca21508e587558e7e2.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cymplecy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cymplecy/32/2773_2.png) [@cymplecy](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cymplecy)\
**Post date:** [29 October 2025 09:56 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/14 "2025-10-29T09:56:09Z")

</div>

I've found the issue

Turns out I don't manually start NR on this machine - I scripted it and got folder wrong!

![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/3X/1/4/1482ff4e7cbd16cf0faa1ec63fb66595db81d215.png)

#Plonker 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Trying\_to\_learn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/trying_to_learn/32/28400_2.png) [@Trying\_to\_learn](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Trying_to_learn)\
**Post date:** [30 October 2025 07:59 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/15 "2025-10-30T07:59:34Z")

</div>

Good to hear you found the problem.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jodelkoenig](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/jodelkoenig/32/44645_2.png) [@jodelkoenig](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/jodelkoenig)\
**Post date:** [30 October 2025 08:16 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/16 "2025-10-30T08:16:00Z")

</div>

It is nice to see, this happens not only to me ... Doesn't help you, I know, however, makes a lot of people feel better too, I assume 🙂

Glad you found a solution!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/1X/d073cd938eafa2e558d7c2cd59003b3ef4963033.png) [@system](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [13 November 2025 08:16 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-changes-not-surving-a-reboot/99525/17 "2025-11-13T08:16:04Z")

</div>

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