Bypassing an instance of linked subgraphs break the other instance

[comfy-pr-bot]

Custom Node Testing

• I have tried disabling custom nodes and the issue persists (see how to disable custom nodes if you need help)

Expected Behavior

There should be a way to bypass subgraph instances without bypassing inner nodes. Or setting a subgraph mode to never should pass the values to output if number of inputs and outputs and their types match.

Actual Behavior

Edit: welp, subgraph in a subgraph being linked is also broken now. Here's my other bug report since it was a great feature and it is ultimately required. #5138

Right now there's no way to bypass a subgraph without bypassing its inner nodes. So disabling one of the instances of a subgraph ends up bypassing every instance of that subgraph. I think recursive bypass shouldnt be a thing for subgraphs. if you want to bypass things inside, one should simply go in and select everything to bypass. otherwise inner nodes should not execute when the outer node is bypassed regardless of their own state.

Steps to Reproduce

1. create a subgraph in a subgraph.
2. copy/paste outer subgraph, now the inner subgraphs are linked (which is a perfect feature)
3. go into one of the outer subgraphs and bypass the inner subgraph.
4. go into other outer subgraph. it doesnt look bypassed but nodes inside are. as of now there is no way to disable only one of the inner subgraph instances (there was before)

Debug Logs

-

Other

Subgraph in a subgraph becomes linked when the outher subgraph is copied. It is defined only once in the json file and is used as instances in both of the outer subgraphs. I have built a feature over this and it is very practical.

However someone opened a bug report;
comfyanonymous/ComfyUI#9282

After the patch if I wanted to disable a linked subgraph in one of the outer subgraphs but keep it enabled in other it wont work. There's simply no way to bypass one instance of an inner subgraph without breaking the other.

Example workflow where I have ksampler and many other subgraphs used as methods/functions common between T2V and I2V subgraphs and when user wants to disable T2V to start generation without using T2V and bypasses T2V all inner subgraphs and their nodes get bypassed and workflow breaks. I've tried setting mode of subgraph to Never and that gives an error since the values are not passed directly to output.

I'm at loss here, having linked subgraphs is a very optimized feature.

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This issue is transferred from: comfyanonymous/ComfyUI#9462

Original issue was created by @leonero-h at 2025-08-20T21:20:04.000Z

Original Comments:

@stef654547:

I experienced exactly the same, bypassing one instance of a subgraph then disables all of them

@leonero-h:

Sad thing is linked subgraphs also became unstable/buggy so there's no way to prove this is a big issue. I have no idea if dev team support subgraphs to be used as methods/functions to actually make workflows more efficient and optimized or they only exist to viusally encapsulate same spagetti we had before.

@Konkss:

If I was designing the UX, if you bypass a subgraph, and an input and an output share the same value name, it should pass that value through the subgraph.

That way you can actually use them and turn them on and off in a modular way, because right now, Group Bypassing is better.

And if I have to make a Group INSIDE of a subgraph just so I can have a working bypass solution....
I shouldn't have to explain how that's bad design.

┆Issue is synchronized with this Notion page by Unito

[dosubot]

This is a known and currently unresolved issue in ComfyUI: bypassing one instance of a linked subgraph will bypass all instances, because the bypass state is shared due to how subgraph references and state are managed in the frontend. This is tracked in several bug reports and is acknowledged as a limitation of the current architecture (ComfyUI_frontend#5138, ComfyUI#9282, ComfyUI#9462). There is no official workaround for selective bypassing of linked subgraph instances; group bypassing is more reliable for modular workflows right now.

Setting a subgraph's mode to "Never" does not automatically pass input values to outputs, even if their names and types match, which leads to errors and broken workflows. This is because there is no logic implemented to handle value passthrough in this mode—the bypass mechanism is recursive and not instance-specific, so all linked instances are affected together and values are not routed through as you might expect (source).

The root cause is architectural: subgraph instances are tightly linked to their definitions, and bypass state propagates globally across all instances. There are no planned or merged fixes for this yet, and recent PRs have focused on widget management rather than bypass logic. This is a recognized pain point for users who want modular, per-instance control of subgraphs.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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