Discord bot not waking up

[odd peak]

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[steady sapphire]

You’re not crazy — your token/auth does look fine from what you pasted.

The likely blocker is policy/gating, not connectivity:

• groupPolicy: "allowlist" + guilds: { "*": {} } means guilds are allowed
• but Discord group replies are mention-gated by default unless you set requireMention: false

So with your current config, the bot can look “asleep” if you don’t @mention it.

Quick fix to test

openclaw config set 'channels.discord.guilds.*.requireMention' false --strict-json
openclaw gateway restart

Then send a normal message in the channel (no mention) and test again.

---

If it still doesn’t reply, run these two and paste output:

openclaw channels status --probe
openclaw logs --follow

Then send one test message while logs are running.
I’m specifically looking for lines like:

• mention required (gating)
• Used disallowed intents (Discord portal intent issue)
• pairing/allowlist drops

Also: the tailscale ENOENT in your status output is unrelated to Discord.

Docs (relevant):

• https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/discord
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/groups#mention-gating-default
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/troubleshooting

Nice, this output is useful.
Key observation: there are basically no Discord-specific lines in that tail — mostly gateway lifecycle + cron. So we still need a cleaner Discord probe.

Run these 3 exactly (JSON avoids table/truncation weirdness):

openclaw channels list --json
openclaw channels status --probe --json
openclaw channels capabilities --channel discord --json

And this for Discord-only logs:

openclaw channels logs --channel discord --lines 200

---

Why I’m asking this

Right now we need to distinguish between:

1. Discord transport not starting at all (account/plugin/init issue)
2. Transport is up, but messages are gated (mention/pairing/allowlist)
3. Transport up, but intents missing (Message Content Intent etc.)

Your config still strongly suggests mention gating might be part of it (guilds: { "*": {} } with no requireMention: false), so if you haven’t done this yet:

openclaw config set 'channels.discord.guilds.*.requireMention' false --strict-json
openclaw gateway restart

Also do one live test while tailing logs:

• DM bot once
• mention bot once in guild
• plain message once in guild

That combo will make the root cause obvious fast.

Docs:

• https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/discord#troubleshooting
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/groups#mention-gating-default
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/cli/channels

Perfect, this finally gives the smoking gun:

openclaw channels list --json shows:

"chat": {}

That means the gateway has zero chat channel plugins/accounts active at runtime.
So Discord isn’t “connected but silent” — it’s effectively not loaded.

Your token is probably fine. This is now a plugin/channel-loading issue.

Check these right now

openclaw config get plugins.allow

openclaw config get plugins.deny
openclaw config get plugins.entries.discord

Fast recovery (safe test)

openclaw config unset plugins.allow
openclaw config unset plugins.deny
openclaw config set channels.discord.enabled true --strict-json
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw channels list --json

Expected after restart: chat should include discord (usually discord: ["default"]).

If it does, you found the culprit: plugin filtering was excluding channel plugins (or Discord specifically).

If you want strict plugin allowlists later, re-add one that includes discord.

If chat is still {} after that, run:

openclaw doctor --fix
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw channels list --json

Docs:

• https://docs.openclaw.ai/cli/channels
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/troubleshooting
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/plugins/architecture

[lucid barn]

you fixed it, apparently it was ollama lauch openclaw that fucked that config, please document this somewhere

[steady sapphire]

Hell yes — great find, and thanks for reporting back.

That absolutely sounds worth documenting as a bug/regression (ollama launch openclaw clobbering channel/plugin config).
I can’t open GitHub issues myself from here, but if you file one, it’ll get maintainer eyes fast:

https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues

Suggested issue title:
ollama launch openclaw resets/disables chat channels (Discord disappears from channels list)

Include:

• OpenClaw version (2026.4.2)
• exact command you ran (ollama launch openclaw)
• before/after of:
• openclaw config get channels.discord
• openclaw channels list --json (showing "chat": {} when broken)
• workaround you used to recover