Undocumented breaking change: Execute sub-flow no longer shows flows that have only "Trigger manually" trigger

[tvardero]

Bug Description

I have migrated from v1.123.x to v2.2.3.
Two breaking changes were made that were not documented in v2.0.0 release notes:

1. "Execute sub-flow" node no longer accepts flows that have only "Trigger manually" trigger.
2. "Execute sub-flow" nodes that had previously such flow selected (before migration to v2) are no longer working. Executing them throws "Workflow is not active and cannot be executed.".

To Reproduce

no response

Expected behavior

no response

Debug Info

Debug info

core

• n8nVersion: 2.2.3
• platform: docker (self-hosted)
• nodeJsVersion: 22.21.1
• nodeEnv: production
• database: sqlite
• executionMode: regular
• concurrency: -1
• license: enterprise (production)
• consumerId: 6bdd311e-6187-4f3d-a891-3ef4df92c06c

storage

• success: all
• error: all
• progress: false
• manual: true
• binaryMode: filesystem

pruning

• enabled: true
• maxAge: 336 hours
• maxCount: 10000 executions

client

• userAgent: mozilla/5.0 (x11; linux x86_64) applewebkit/537.36 (khtml, like gecko) chrome/143.0.0.0 safari/537.36
• isTouchDevice: false

Generated at: 2026-01-08T12:01:28.822Z

Operating System

Alpine Linux

n8n Version

2.2.3

Node.js Version

22.21.1

Database

SQLite (default)

Execution mode

main (default)

Hosting

self hosted

[tvardero]

Reason why we were using "Trigger manually" node is that it does not require to define any input field.
I don't know why, but users are forced to define at least one input in "When Executed by Another Workflow" trigger.

[krisn0x]

Hey @tvardero , I tried reproducing this on the latest version and the sub-workflow executes. Are you publishing your sub-workflow? Version 2.0 moved away from Activating/Deactivating and towards Publishing workflows.

[tvardero]

Workflows with "Manual" triggers can not be published, as "workflow does not have triggers that require publishing".

Please reopen.

[tvardero]

Adding "When Executed by Another Workflow" trigger is a workaround to the issue, however in our n8n we have dozens of workflows that now require to be fixed. Please document this breaking change.

[tvardero]

@krisn0x Hi, your suggestion can not be applied, as workflows with "Manual" trigger can not be published.

Can you reopen this ticket?
Or should I open a new ticket as bug about that workflow with "Manual" trigger should be publish-able?

[o15a3d4l11s2]

I faced a similar issue.

Flow with multiple sub-flows, everything unpublished (still in development). All sub-flows have 2 entry points - When clicking ‘Execute workflow’ and When Executed by Another Workflow (the purpose is to test with mock data by executing manually the sub-flow). The "simple" sub-flows work, but the ones that have nested sub-flows inside of them give the error Workflow is not active and cannot be executed.

[tvardero]

@krisn0x I kindly remind you that this issue should be reopenned