My OpenClaw always hung in the midway

[torpid perch]

I have added session state logging, added prompt in agents.md and heartbeat.md to check and resume hanged tasks, and increased the timeout limit of LLM - it still paused without notifying and would not pick up until I asked.

What could be the issue? Could you guys share some tips please?

[wooden rampart]

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[gentle egret]

I’m checking the docs/code path for this, because “it just pauses until I poke it” usually has a few specific causes.

What you added makes sense, but my first guess is this:

the main session lane is getting stuck, so heartbeat never gets a chance to “rescue” it.

A few important gotchas here:

• AGENTS.md / HEARTBEAT.md only affect behavior once a turn is actually running
• diagnostics.stuckSessionWarnMs / session logging help detect hangs, they do not unstick them
• heartbeat is main-session, so if that lane is already busy/stuck, it can get skipped as requests-in-flight

That would match “it only woke up when I asked again”.

Please check these first and paste the output:

openclaw --version

openclaw status --all
openclaw system heartbeat last
openclaw tasks list
openclaw tasks audit
openclaw logs --follow

What I’d look for in logs:

• heartbeat skipped with reason=requests-in-flight
• stuck session: ... processing
• No output for ... It may be waiting for input.

A few concrete tips:

1. If this is detached work (ACP/subagent), inspect tasks, not heartbeat

   openclaw tasks list
   openclaw tasks show <taskId-or-runId>
   openclaw tasks notify <taskId-or-runId> state_changes

By default, ACP/subagent tasks are often done_only, so mid-run stalls can feel “silent”.

2. Do not rely on heartbeat to recover a wedged main turn
   Heartbeat can be skipped when the session is already busy. For watchdog/recovery, isolated cron or detached tasks are usually better than “please resume hung work” in HEARTBEAT.md.

3. Make sure heartbeat is not skipping for a boring reason
   Common ones are:

   • quiet-hours
   • empty-heartbeat-file
   • no-tasks-due
   • alerts-disabled