Why does OpenClaw v2026.4.24 fail to start after update?

The npm postinstall script aggressively prunes 1617 of 4116 JS files from the dist/ directory, causing ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND errors on gateway startup.

What is the Bonjour crash loop in OpenClaw 2026.4.24?

The Bonjour/CIAO mDNS advertiser fires unhandled promise rejections approximately every 16 seconds, causing the gateway to enter a tight crash loop after about 30 seconds of uptime.

How to fix OpenClaw v2026.4.24 gateway crash?

Downgrade to v2026.4.23 immediately restores stability. Alternatively, disabling the bonjour plugin prevents the CIAO crash loop specifically.

Why are WhatsApp and Telegram broken in OpenClaw 2026.4.24?

The postinstall pruning bug removes critical messaging channel modules from the dist/ directory, causing WhatsApp and Telegram integrations to stop working entirely.

How many files does OpenClaw 2026.4.24 delete during install?

The npm tarball contains 4116 .js files in dist/, but after installation only 2499 remain. 1617 files (39%) are silently deleted during the postinstall process.

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⚠ IssueWide OpenLive

OpenClaw v2026.4.24 silently deletes 1617 dist files during postinstall, gateway crash loop every 16 seconds

Updating from v2026.4.23 to v2026.4.24 triggers a postinstall pruning bug that silently deletes 1617 of 4116 JS files from dist/, causing ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND on gateway startup. Separately, Bonjour/CIAO mDNS advertiser fires unhandled promise rejections causing crash loops every ~16 seconds. WhatsApp and Telegram channels stop working entirely.

Product Idea from this Signal

A CLI tool that snapshots your OpenClaw state before updates, runs the upgrade in a sandboxed dry-run against your live config, and auto-rolls back if any health check fails

433.6k ▲

OpenClaw ships updates every 2-3 days and each one risks breaking exec permissions, crashing the gateway, saturating CPU with plugin loading bugs, or silently deleting cron jobs. Four separate regressions in April 2026 alone (v2026.4.1 sandbox, v2026.4.5 CPU, v2026.4.14 memory timeouts, update command wiping Feishu and crons) hit thousands of self-hosters with no rollback path. The built-in openclaw doctor only validates config schema after the fact. This tool wraps the entire update lifecycle: snapshot state, dry-run the upgrade against your actual agent/cron/channel config, diff the before/after, and block or auto-rollback if anything regresses.

CLIOPEN-SOURCEDEVTOOLSELF-HOSTEDRELIABILITY

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