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UnverifiedLast checked OpenClaw#setup#error-messages

Gateway startup failure prints only The CLI command failed with no Reason

A failed Gateway start prints only [openclaw] The CLI command failed. A systemd restart loop then repeats that generic pair with no Reason: line.

From GitHub

openclaw/openclaw

IssuePull request

Difficulty
Easy
Time
~5 min
Steps
2
Fixed in
—
Last checked

Unverified: we could not confirm from the sources that a fix shipped. Source: PR #172107 merged. Last checked 2026-10-19.

Symptom

A failed Gateway start prints only [openclaw] The CLI command failed. A systemd restart loop then repeats that generic pair with no Reason: line.

Evidence what you'll see

  • In the 2026-10-13 incident the unit crash-looped for about 30 minutes (restart counter 1 to 7+, about 54 restart lines) and every cycle logged the same generic message.
  • The journal showed startup phases such as entry.run-main-import and cli.main.gateway-run-select-environment, then the generic CLI failure, with no Reason: and no stack.
  • The same presentation on plugin commands was addressed earlier; this report is the Gateway startup path in src/cli/failure-output.ts.

Why it happens

The shared CLI failure formatter omitted foreground Gateway starts from its reason policy. Pull request 172107 reuses the startup-safe argv parser so unexpected foreground Gateway startup failures include a redacted [openclaw] Reason: without debug mode.

Affected versions

The report is a systemd crash loop of the Gateway unit. The linked issue does not name an OpenClaw version, Node version, or operating system for that incident.

Fix steps

0 of 2 done

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How to check it worked

  • A failed openclaw gateway start prints [openclaw] Reason: in the journal, not only [openclaw] The CLI command failed.

If it still fails

  • No published release tag contains pull request 172107. Tags v2026.10.3, v2026.10.4, and v2026.10.5 were compared against merge 2ab4a04c53b2 and do not contain it.

Sources and credit

Summarized in our own words from these public reports. Credit goes to their authors.

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