Sampler Switch (Restart)

Straight talk first: the pack itself flags this one DEPRECATED, and its category in the menu is literally "DEPRECATED." So before you build anything on top of it, know what you're getting into. What it does is simple - it's a two-input switch whose output is typed as a sampler name, aimed at the restart-sampler crowd. Whether you should use it is another question, and the honest answer is "probably not, but it's harmless and it explains a whole era of sampler tooling."

What it was for

Back when Restart sampling was a hot topic, workflows wanted to switch between restart-compatible samplers on the fly. This node is that switch: an Input widget (1 or 2) selects between input1 / input2, and the output is typed as the restart sampler list - euler, euler_ancestral, heun, dpm_2, lms, dpmpp_2s_ancestral, dpmpp_2m, dpmpp_2m_alt, ddpm, lcm, ipndm, ipndm_v, deis, ddim, and friends. Same "pick one of two, pass it through" mechanism as every other RvTools switch; the only twist is the declared output type.

That's also the tell: the inputs are any-type (*), so you can wire sampler-name strings in, but the output claims to be a restart sampler. The node doesn't validate anything - it just routes. The author later deprecated it as the selector/settings nodes took over the same job with better typing.

Should you use it?

If you're resurrecting an old workflow that already has one, it'll keep working - it's a two-line router, there's nothing to break. But if you're building something new, don't reach for this. The non-deprecated alternatives in the same pack are cleaner:

• Sampler Selector for a full 44-sampler dropdown you can fan out to multiple samplers.
• Sampler Selection when you want sampler + scheduler bundled into a pipe.

Restart sampling itself is a real technique (it periodically re-noises to escape bad trajectories, which is why its sampler list is a specific subset), but in 2026 most of the models people run have moved past where that mattered most - and if you do want it, you want it from a maintained pack, not a deprecated one.

Installing it

Same pack, same routine - it's part of ComfyUI-RvTools_v2, no models to download. ComfyUI Manager → search RvTools → install, restart. Or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/r-vage/ComfyUI-RvTools_v2

Restart and look for RvTools v2: Version 2.5.x in the console. The pack's extra deps (opencv-python, pilgram, pynvml, piexif) install automatically.

Troubleshooting

• It's deprecated - don't file bug reports expecting fixes. The author has moved on to ComfyUI_Eclipse, the successor pack, and this node is a legacy leftover.
• Old RvTools v1 references fail in Manager. The original repo was deleted; this v2 pack renamed everything, which is exactly why you'll sometimes see "Sampler Switch (Restart) [RvTools]" in workflows that a Manager search for "RvTools" alone won't immediately resolve. Install the pack and the node appears.
• No active input = None. Like all the switches, if you route to an input that isn't wired, you get None downstream. Check both inputs are connected before blaming the sampler.