n8n-io/n8n · error · NodeOperationError

Error executing tool

Error message

Error executing tool: ${(error as Error).message}

What it means

Catch-all NodeOperationError thrown by the ToolExecutor node when executing the selected tool (single tool or tools within a toolkit) raises any exception. The for-loop over toolInputs and the per-tool executeTool calls are wrapped in try/catch; the catch re-throws with 'Error executing tool: <message>', normalizing arbitrary tool errors into a NodeOperationError.

Solutions

1. Read the appended error.message to identify the underlying tool failure.
2. Ensure the query arguments match the tool's input schema (field names and types).
3. For API-backed tools, verify credentials, rate limits, and endpoint availability.
4. Run the tool in isolation with the same arguments to reproduce, then fix the argument shape.

// Validate arguments against the tool's schema before calling executeTool.

try {
  for (const tool of toolInputs) { ... await executeTool(tool, args); }
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof NodeOperationError && e.message.startsWith('Error executing tool:')) {
    // inspect suffix, decide retry vs skip vs fail item
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Any error thrown inside the tool execution loop (toolkit getTools, executeTool, schema conversion, the tool's own run) is caught and re-thrown. Fires when the underlying LangChain tool raises: bad arguments, upstream API failure, zod schema validation failure, permission errors.

Common situations: Tool arguments do not match its schema; the tool's backend API rejects the call (auth, rate limit, not found); a custom tool implementation throws; zod validation fails when converting a string input to the tool's ZodObject schema.

Related errors

• Error connecting to ChromaDB
• Error
• Error inserting documents into ChromaDB
• Failed to list ChromaDB collections
• Guardrail validation failed

AI-assisted analysis of n8n-io/n8n@5ac6606e81 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6d5608022790aee5. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at packages/@n8n/nodes-langchain/nodes/ToolExecutor/ToolExecutor.node.ts:192

									metadata: buildResponseMetadata(response, 0),
								};
							}

							const result = await executeTool(toolkitTool, getQueryData(toolName) ?? {});
							resultData.push(result);
						}
					}
				} else {
					// Handle single tool
					if (!toolName || toolName === tool.name) {
						const toolInput = getQueryData(toolName || tool.name);
						const result = await executeTool(tool, toolInput ?? {});
						resultData.push(result);
					}
				}
			}
		} catch (error) {
			throw new NodeOperationError(
				this.getNode(),
				`Error executing tool: ${(error as Error).message}`,
			);
		}
		return [resultData];
	}
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 5ac6606e81)