OpenClaw v2026.4.5 Regression: Worker Processes Load All Plugins, 888% CPU Saturation

Upgrading from v2026.4.2 to v2026.4.5 causes every worker child process to independently register all plugins, spawning 87+ processes each consuming 20-50% CPU. Total CPU hits 888% vs 2% on v2026.4.2. Mac Mini with 8-10 cores rendered unusable. Load average 17.77. Root cause: plugin registration not gated to gateway process.

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

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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Social Proof 1 sources

v2026.4.5 regression: worker processes load all plugins, causing CPU saturation

gh:bryangauvin · 4/6/2026

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across 1 platforms

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Updated8h ago

Trend→ stable

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