#telegram group chat for open claw not working

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

jovial jay
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Hey everyone sorry to ask but im been stuck on this for the last 3 days, i have my openclaw up and running and i can talk to it on telegram but only directly if i make a group chat and try to talk to it cant see or respond in the group chat it is saying the json file needs to be changed but i cant seem to find this file for the life of me and the bot cant make the change. any help would be appreciated heres the setting im trying to find "chatId":-1003883412200,"title":"MoltBot_Colab","reason":"not-allowed"

tired plazaBOT
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To help others find answers, you can mark your question as solved via Right click solution message -> Apps -> âś… Mark Solution

amber inletBOT
#

That log snippet is OpenClaw telling you: “I did receive traffic from this Telegram group (chatId=-100…), but I’m dropping it because that group isn’t allowed by your config.”

1) The file you’re looking for

OpenClaw’s config lives here:

  • ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json (JSON5)

If you’re running the gateway under a dedicated user (common with some VPS/docker/podman setups), it can instead be:

  • ~openclaw/.openclaw/openclaw.json

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/configuration

2) Why DMs work but groups don’t

DM “pairing” approvals do not automatically authorize group chats. Groups are fail-closed unless you explicitly allow them in config. (And group sender auth can require groupAllowFrom / per-group allowFrom.)

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/telegram (see “Group policy and allowlists”)

#

3) Minimal fix: allow that specific group

Add your group under channels.telegram.groups (note the chatId key must be a string):

// ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json
{
  channels: {
    telegram: {
      groups: {
        "-1003883412200": {
          // safest default: only respond when mentioned
          requireMention: true,

          // easiest “make it work” option:
          // allow anyone in that group to talk to the bot
          groupPolicy: "open",
# 
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

If you don’t want it open to everyone in the group, keep groupPolicy: "allowlist" and add your Telegram numeric user id as allowFrom (per-group) or groupAllowFrom (global).

4) Quick questions so I don’t guess wrong

  1. What does openclaw --version show?
  2. Paste the log line(s) around the reason:"not-allowed" (and your channels.telegram { ... } config block), redacting your bot token.

If this fixes it, please mark the solution in the thread (right-click message → Apps → ✅ Mark Solution) so Answer Overflow indexes it.

jovial jay
#

this worked thanks!