n8n-io/n8n · error · InternalServerError

Please contact your administrator: ${error.message}

Error message

Please contact your administrator: ${error.message}

What it means

The password-reset email could not be sent and the underlying failure from the mailer is wrapped as a 500 InternalServerError with the original error message appended. n8n re-surfaces the mailer's message directly because the cause is almost always mail infrastructure (SMTP connection, authentication, relay rejection).

Source

Thrown at packages/cli/src/controllers/password-reset.controller.ts:143

			}

			const url = this.authService.generatePasswordResetUrl(user);

			const { id, firstName } = user;
			try {
				await this.mailer.passwordReset({
					email,
					firstName,
					passwordResetUrl: url,
				});
			} catch (error) {
				this.eventService.emit('email-failed', {
					user,
					messageType: 'Reset password',
					publicApi: false,
				});
				if (error instanceof Error) {
					throw new InternalServerError(
						`Please contact your administrator: ${error.message}`,
						error,
					);
				}
			}

			this.logger.info('Sent password reset email successfully', { userId: user.id, email });
			this.eventService.emit('user-transactional-email-sent', {
				userId: id,
				messageType: 'Reset password',
				publicApi: false,
			});

			this.eventService.emit('user-password-reset-request-click', { user });
		} catch (error) {
			// Catch any unexpected errors to prevent information leakage
			this.errorReporter.error(
				new Error('Unexpected error in forgot password endpoint', { cause: error }),

View on GitHub (pinned to 5ac6606e81)

Solutions

Verify the SMTP env vars (host, port, user, pass, sender) and that the credentials are still valid.
Test SMTP connectivity from the n8n host (telnet/openssl to the SMTP host:port) and check firewall/egress rules.
Inspect server logs for the original mailer error message that is appended to 'Please contact your administrator:'.
In local dev, start the mailpit container (pnpm --filter n8n-containers services --services mailpit) and point SMTP at it.

Example fix

// before: missing/misconfigured mailer
// .env
// N8N_EMAIL_MODE=smtp
// N8N_SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
// N8N_SMTP_PORT=587
// after
N8N_EMAIL_MODE=smtp
N8N_SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
N8N_SMTP_PORT=587
N8N_SMTP_USER=apikey
N8N_SMTP_PASS=<secret-from-env-not-arg>
N8N_SMTP_SENDER=noreply@example.com
N8N_SMTP_SSL_STRICT=true

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

// Pre-flight: verify SMTP env vars are set before relying on the flow.
function smtpConfigured(env = process.env) {
  return Boolean(env.N8N_SMTP_HOST && env.N8N_SMTP_PORT);
}
// optionally open a test SMTP connection from the host before invoking reset

Try / catch

try {
  await api.post('/forgot-password', { email });
} catch (e) {
  if (e.status === 500 && /Please contact your administrator/.test(e.message)) {
    // surface the appended mailer message and alert ops to check SMTP
  } else { throw e; }
}

Prevention

Run SMTP connectivity checks as part of deployment health checks.
Keep secrets in env vars, never on the command line.
Use mailpit in dev so the mailer path always has a target.

When it happens

Trigger: mailer.passwordReset() throws inside the password-reset controller — SMTP connection refused, auth credentials rejected by the relay, recipient address refused, or the mail provider timing out.

Common situations: N8N_SMTP_* / N8N_EMAIL_* env vars missing or wrong; outbound network/egress to the SMTP host blocked; in dev the mailpit/maildev container is not running; relay rate-limits or blocks the n8n host.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of n8n-io/n8n@5ac6606e81 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/043312f4edeac620. Report an issue: GitHub.