invoke-ai/InvokeAI · critical · RuntimeError

JWT secret not found in database. This should have been crea

Error message

JWT secret not found in database. This should have been created during database migration. Please ensure database migrations have been run successfully.

What it means

get_jwt_secret() reads the 'jwt_secret' key from the app-settings database and raises RuntimeError when it is absent. The secret is supposed to be created during database migrations, so its absence means the settings store was never migrated or the row was lost.

Source

Thrown at invokeai/app/services/app_settings/app_settings_service.py:70

                ON CONFLICT(key) DO UPDATE SET
                    value = excluded.value,
                    updated_at = STRFTIME('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%f', 'NOW');
                """,
                (key, value),
            )

    def get_jwt_secret(self) -> str:
        """Get the JWT secret key from the database.

        Returns:
            The JWT secret key

        Raises:
            RuntimeError: If the JWT secret is not found in the database
        """
        secret = self.get("jwt_secret")
        if secret is None:
            raise RuntimeError(
                "JWT secret not found in database. This should have been created during database migration. "
                "Please ensure database migrations have been run successfully."
            )
        return secret

View on GitHub (pinned to 0b6a024f2f)

Solutions

Run database migrations (e.g. invokeai-db-maintenance / the app's migration path) so jwt_secret is created
Back up and delete the old DB file (or just the stale settings table) and let InvokeAI re-initialize with fresh migrations
Restore jwt_secret manually into the settings table if you need existing tokens to remain valid

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

secret = app_settings.get("jwt_secret")
if secret is None:
    raise RuntimeError("jwt_secret missing; run DB migrations first")

Try / catch

try:
    secret = app_settings.get_jwt_secret()
except RuntimeError:
    run_database_migrations()
    secret = app_settings.get_jwt_secret()

Prevention

Run migrations as part of every upgrade before starting the server
Back up invokeai.db together with config when moving installs
Never hand-edit the settings table

When it happens

Trigger: Any call to get_jwt_secret() when self.get('jwt_secret') returns None: running the app against a pre-migration or empty database, a DB file replaced or restored from an old backup without the jwt_secret row, or a failed/partial migration.

Common situations: Fresh checkout pointing at a stale invokeai.db; upgrading InvokeAI without running migrations; moving the DB between machines; manually editing/deleting rows in the settings table.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of invoke-ai/InvokeAI@0b6a024f2f (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cab603d9c6dbe5a9. Report an issue: GitHub.