AgentFixboard
UnverifiedLast checked OpenClaw#setup#config

openclaw update keeps verifying past the explicit --timeout budget

openclaw update with --timeout 3600 stays in previous-gateway verification after that budget. It never prints a terminal result.

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 #171077 merged. Last checked 2026-10-19.

Symptom

openclaw update with --timeout 3600 stays in previous-gateway verification after that budget. It never prints a terminal result.

Evidence what you'll see

  • The updater printed Budget 3600000ms (explicit --timeout), then kept repeating previous gateway verification: Previous-Gateway readiness verification: service, listener identity, version/build, health RPC and /readyz. and Gateway is not ready yet; continuing update readiness verification.
  • It started at 20:10 local, wrote its last stderr line at 21:18, and was still running at 21:50 until the operator sent SIGTERM. No JSON landed on stdout.
  • The candidate was meant to crash at live service start. launchctl list showed last exit 1 and a crash-loop.

Why it happens

A maintainer comment says --timeout is applied per phase, and each readiness, verification, and recovery phase starts a fresh deadline, so a failed candidate can spend about four to five times the budget. On macOS, LaunchAgent restart also calls launchctl with no timeout, and the recovery health wait prints no progress.

Affected versions

OpenClaw 2026.10.2 (b8952d4), macOS Darwin 27.0.0 arm64, Node v26.10.0, npm global prefix in a scratch prefix. Scratch profile proof2, port 27789, launchd job ai.openclaw.proof2 from openclaw gateway install.

Fix steps

0 of 2 done

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How to check it worked

  • A candidate that crashes at live start ends inside the --timeout budget with a terminal failed outcome, instead of repeating Gateway is not ready yet; continuing update readiness verification past that budget.

If it still fails

  • No published release tag contains pull request 171077. Tags v2026.10.3, v2026.10.4, and v2026.10.5 were compared against merge 26e1b25df3d5 and do not contain it.
  • The same forced-failure proof on Linux (Raspberry Pi, user systemd service) finished in about 14 minutes with state-migrated-no-rollback and the gateway left down.

Sources and credit

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

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