Can’t Import or Detect Old Workflows After Clean Install of KNIME 5.5

KNIME Analytics Platform
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve recently done a clean reinstall of KNIME Analytics Platform 5.5 (Windows, 64-bit, installer) and ran into a frustrating issue that I haven’t been able to resolve even after many tries.

when I launch KNIME, the workflow it asks for the file where as the file name workflow.knime is already present in the folder C:\Users\me\knime-workspace\knime_working_june2025.
In addition i have older work of many months in a work flow, i am unable to open that either as the new version does not see the work flow file in the folder.

Please help

2

Hi @Mobihashim01 , are you able to see the workflow folder and its subfolders in Windows Explorer?

Could you upload a screenshot showing the workflow folder (make sure there’s no private information being displayed that you would not want to share)

3

thanks for the reply. yes i can see the workflow in the folder. please find attached the one i worked last week

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but i am more worried about the work flow i worked a few months and it was the work of around 2-3 months to get the data into the right shape.

4

the thing which is confusing me is it used to ask for the folder to open the work flow and since i upgraded to the version today, it is asking me for the file name where as the workflow file is in the folder.

5

Hi @Mobihashim01 , thanks for uploading the screenshot. Where in KNIME is it asking you to open the file? That seems odd. Are you sure it is not the dialog that is asking for the “workspace” folder.

Are you able to get a screenshot of that dialog?

Are you using the older “classic UI” or the “Modern UI”?

What I would suggest, just to protect what you already have is that (outside of KNIME) you backup your whole workspace folder to another location.

What you can also do, but this shouldn’t be necessary, is to individually create a zip archive of the individual workflow folders.

For example, if I have a workflow called “KNIME_project” I could use a zip utility (in my case, 7-Zip) to archive this to a KNIME_project.zip file

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This way you have an easy-to-find backup of your workflow.

If you have a zip copy of a workflow, it is actually possible to import the workflow back into your KNIME environment using the Import workflow option in KNIME, and then selecting the zip file. This works because the KNIME workflow export files are actually just zip files that have been given the .knwf extension.

It would be good to get to the bottom of what has happened in your case, and what KNIME is actually asking for in terms of the file, but if all else fails, importing the workflows back in from zip copies might get you sorted easily.

6

i am sure it is asking me for the file. what i did was to zip the folder where i had the project and then i renamed that zile chaing its extension .zip to knwf and opened that project. i am very depressed seeing what is happening. the other issue i have been struggling is to use the column remaner. it does not allow me to double click and open the configuration. its is been since morning i facing these issues after updating to the newest version. it seems this is is total waste

7

Hi @Mobihashim01,

So have you now got your project open and working again? I hope you have. It sounds to me like there was a misconfiguration or incorrect folder selection for your overall workspace (not workflow!) although I don’t know why that would be. Is your workspace set correctly?

On this second part, I have added an answer in your new post on that topic