#4.25 acting strange, repeats messages, sometimes hangs

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pine mirage
#

Hi all, i just upgraded from 4.20 to 4.25 and it is behaving strangely. I ask it questions and it repeats previous answers word for word. It sometimes doesnā€™t even answer.

The only clue i have from a self diagnostic is ā€œmissing module from internal toolsetā€. It says it will try to fix but never comes back. It also doesnā€™t seem to remember previous conversations any more.

Mac Mini M4 24 GB
Using Claude
Messaging via Signal

Suggestions?

onyx islandBOT
#

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formal nimbusBOT
#

That pattern sounds like a bad session/transcript state after the upgrade, not Claude itself. There was a 2026.4.24-era transcript duplication issue that doctor --fix is meant to repair.

Iā€™d do this first on the Mac:

openclaw --version
openclaw gateway stop
openclaw doctor --fix
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw status --all

Then in Signal, send a standalone:

/new
#

That starts a fresh session without deleting old transcripts, and should stop the ā€œrepeating previous answerā€ loop if the active session got poisoned.

The ā€œmissing module from internal toolsetā€ clue may be bundled plugin/runtime deps. doctor --fix should repair those too, but stopping the gateway first avoids it racing itself during repair.

If it still happens, paste the redacted output from:

openclaw --version
openclaw status --all
openclaw doctor

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq and https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/doctor šŸ¦

pine mirage
#

I ran the sequence of commands you suggested. It is still behaving strangely and even killed my Signal setup. I restarted the machine and using TUI.

Here are the results from the last 3 commands you posted:

openclaw --version
OpenClaw 2026.4.25 (aa36ee6)

formal nimbusBOT
#

Oof, sorry ā€” thatā€™s frustrating. The commands shouldnā€™t unregister Signal, so Iā€™d avoid re-registering/relinking Signal for now. Letā€™s inspect before changing more.

Please paste the full redacted output from these read-only checks:

openclaw status --all
openclaw doctor
openclaw channels status --probe
openclaw pairing list signal
pgrep -af signal-cli

And for the Signal-specific log tail:

grep -i "signal" "/tmp/openclaw/openclaw-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).log" | tail -80
#

For the repeating/hanging part: 2026.4.25 includes repair logic for a 2026.4.24 transcript-duplication bug, but if itā€™s still happening after /new, I want to see whether doctor actually found/repaired session branches or whether session writes are failing.

For Signal: the likely buckets are:

  • Signal channel disabled/migrated config weirdly
  • signal-cli daemon not starting after restart
  • pairing/allowlist state changed
  • gateway is healthy but Signal probe is failing

Docs refs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/signal#troubleshooting and https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/doctor šŸ¦

pine mirage
#

Sorry having trouble pasting the logs. Too long

formal nimbusBOT
#

No worries ā€” donā€™t paste the full logs inline. Please either attach a .txt file here, or run this smaller filtered bundle:

LOG="$(ls -t /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-*.log | head -1)"

{
  echo "=== version ==="
  openclaw --version
  echo
  echo "=== gateway ==="
  openclaw gateway status
  echo
  echo "=== status ==="
  openclaw status --all
  echo
  echo "=== doctor relevant lines ==="
# 
  openclaw doctor 2>&1 | grep -Ei "error|warn|fail|missing|module|toolset|signal|session|duplicate|runtime|plugin|repair" | tail -120
  echo
  echo "=== channel probe ==="
  openclaw channels status --probe
  echo
  echo "=== signal logs ==="
  grep -Ei "signal|error|warn|fail|missing|module" "$LOG" | tail -120
} > ~/Desktop/openclaw-diagnostics.txt

Then upload ~/Desktop/openclaw-diagnostics.txt.

Before uploading, quickly skim/redact any phone numbers, tokens, or API keys. Signal logs often contain phone-ish identifiers. šŸ¦

pine mirage
#

Can i send a dropbox link? It is not letting me attach

formal nimbusBOT
#

Yes ā€” a Dropbox link is okay if itā€™s redacted first.

Important: this #help thread may be publicly indexed, so donā€™t share raw logs with phone numbers, tokens, API keys, Signal UUIDs, etc.

Best format:

  • plain .txt
  • not a zip if possible
  • Dropbox link set to ā€œanyone with link can viewā€
  • remove it later if you want

If you want a quick extra redaction pass before upload:

cp ~/Desktop/openclaw-diagnostics.txt ~/Desktop/openclaw-diagnostics-redacted.txt

Then manually search the redacted copy for:

#
  • token
  • apiKey
  • Authorization
  • phone numbers
  • Signal account IDs / UUIDs

Send the Dropbox link to the redacted file here and Iā€™ll look at the relevant bits. šŸ¦

pine mirage
formal nimbusBOT
#

I got the file. Two useful things jump out:

  1. Youā€™re not actually running Claude right now.
    The gateway log says:
[gateway] agent model: ollama/llama3.1:8b

That would absolutely explain repetition, weak tool use, ā€œmissing moduleā€ hallucinations, and hangs. First fix is to switch the default back to your Anthropic/Claude model:

openclaw models status
openclaw models list | grep -i anthropic
openclaw models set <copy-the-claude-model-ref-from-your-list>
openclaw gateway restart
#

Then start fresh in TUI:

/new
  1. Signal does not look permanently broken.
    It timed out/restarted, but later log lines show signal-cli started again and doctor says Signal: ok. So Iā€™d fix the model first, then test Signal again with a standalone:
/new

Also: your doctor output is read-only and still says Run "openclaw doctor --fix". The orphan transcript cleanup is safe-ish ā€” it renames an unreferenced transcript ā€” but donā€™t worry about the live lock while TUI is open.

If this still repeats after switching off Ollama, then the next useful paste is just:

pine mirage
#

My Signal conversation is to an instance of Openclaw that has llama set, but my tui is using sonnet! How do i get sonnet back to Signal by default? It seems to be launching into conversation with an instance using llama

formal nimbusBOT
#

Yep ā€” thatā€™s not a separate OpenClaw instance, itā€™s a separate session. TUI and Signal can have independent persisted /model overrides.

Do this:

  1. In TUI, get the exact Sonnet ref/alias from:
/model status
  1. Set the global default back to that from terminal:
openclaw models set <sonnet-ref-or-alias>
openclaw gateway restart
#
  1. In Signal, send this as a standalone message:
/model <sonnet-ref-or-alias>

Then start clean:

/new

Or combine it:

/new <sonnet-ref-or-alias>
#

Then check in Signal:

/status

If Signal ignores /model, that means command authorization/pairing is the next issue ā€” but if it works, Signal should stop inheriting the old Llama session override.

pine mirage
#

Ok i did that sequence above. However upon restart, /new sonnet took forever to come back with a reply. /status shows sonnet model is set.

formal nimbusBOT
#

Good ā€” if /status in Signal shows Sonnet, donā€™t keep changing models. The old Llama session override is probably fixed.

A slow /new sonnet right after restart can be cold start/session rebuild, but it should not keep happening. Try one tiny fresh prompt in Signal:

Reply with exactly: pineapple-428

If it hangs, repeats, or takes >60ā€“90s, paste this read-only bundle:

openclaw --version
openclaw status --all
openclaw sessions --active 120 --verbose

LOG="$(ls -t /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-*.log | head -1)"
# 
grep -Ei "agent model|sonnet|anthropic|ollama|timeout|rate|overload|error|warn|session|queue|signal" "$LOG" | tail -180

Main thing I want to verify now: whether itā€™s actually using Anthropic but timing out/rate-limiting, or whether session/queue state is still wedged after the 4.25 repair.

Docs refs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq and https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/session šŸ¦

pine mirage
#

Results of above coming in multiple posts.

Openclaw ā€”version yielded:

OpenClaw 2026.4.25 (aa36ee6)

formal nimbusBOT
#

Got it ā€” 2026.4.25 is useful context. That release had a lot of plugin/session/runtime-deps churn, and 4.26/4.27 include fixes in nearby areas, so Iā€™d first move off 4.25.

Try:

openclaw update
openclaw doctor
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw status --all

If it still repeats/hangs after that, please paste the redacted openclaw status --all plus the log around one bad turn:

openclaw logs --follow
#

The ā€œmissing module from internal toolsetā€ clue sounds more like a plugin/runtime-dependency or mixed-version gateway issue than Claude itself. Also check that openclaw --version and openclaw gateway status agree after restart ā€” on macOS itā€™s possible for the CLI to update while the LaunchAgent is still running older/stale code.

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/install/updating and https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq

pine mirage
#

Right now my openclaw setup is giving an error and will not return results

formal nimbusBOT
#

I opened the status report ā€” thereā€™s a pretty clear smoking gun.

The current failures are:

Unknown model: openai/sonnet

So even though youā€™re ā€œusing Claudeā€, this session/config is trying to run sonnet under the OpenAI provider. Thatā€™ll fail every time.

Iā€™d do this in order:

openclaw update
openclaw doctor
openclaw gateway restart
# 
openclaw models status
openclaw models list --provider anthropic

Then set the default to one of the valid anthropic/... entries shown by your models list output:

openclaw models set <valid anthropic/... model from the list>

And in the Signal chat, send:

/new
#

That starts a fresh session and clears the possibly-bad per-session model/history state.

Also: your logs show the Anthropic ā€œassistant message prefillā€ failure too ā€” that has fixes in newer builds after 4.25, so getting off 2026.4.25 is important here. The ā€œport already in useā€ line is not the problem; it just means the Gateway is already running.

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/install/updating and https://docs.openclaw.ai/cli/models

#

That sessions output confirms it: one active session is pinned to bare sonnet.

That likely becomes openai/sonnet, matching the log error:

Unknown model: openai/sonnet

Fix the stale session/model state:

openclaw models list --provider anthropic
openclaw models set <valid anthropic/... model from that list>
openclaw gateway restart

Then send this in each broken chat/session, especially Signal:

# 
/new

If you want to force it in-chat too:

/model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6
/new

Use the exact anthropic/... model shown by models list. Also still update off 4.25 ā€” your earlier logs show Anthropic prefill errors that 4.26+ touched.

#

Yep, grep confirms the same pattern plus one more thing:

  • Unknown model: openai/sonnet ā€” bad/stale model selection
  • stuck session ... state=processing
  • Profile anthropic:default timed out
  • llm-idle-timeout ... claude-sonnet-4-6 produced no reply

So Iā€™d treat this as stale session/model state + 4.25 stuck-session bugs, not Signal itself.

Recommended reset path:

openclaw update
openclaw doctor
openclaw models status
openclaw models list --provider anthropic
# 
openclaw models set <valid anthropic/... model>
openclaw gateway restart

Then in Signal send:

/new

If /new doesnā€™t clear it, try explicitly:

/model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6
/new
#

Use the exact model ID from models list.

The Signal warnings about ā€œNo profile name setā€ are probably noise. The important failures are the stale openai/sonnet selection and the stuck/timeout session lane.

#

Yep ā€” at this point donā€™t ask the broken OpenClaw agent to fix itself. Run this from Terminal on the Mac:

openclaw update
openclaw doctor
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw models status

Then verify the model isnā€™t still openai/sonnet:

openclaw models list --provider anthropic
openclaw models set <valid anthropic/... model from the list>
openclaw gateway restart
#

After that, in Signal send:

/new

If any Terminal command errors, paste the exact error text. The earlier logs strongly point to a bad/stale model pin (openai/sonnet) plus a stuck session lane on 4.25, so updating + resetting the session is the cleanest path.

pine mirage
#

First default is set to openai/sonnet. how do i reset that to anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6? also how do i ensure that the alias of ā€œsonnetā€ sets this model? Right now somehow openai/sonnet is in the list of models. No idea how it got there.

formal nimbusBOT
#

Yep ā€” fix this from Terminal, not via the broken agent.

Run:

openclaw models set anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6
openclaw models aliases remove sonnet
openclaw models aliases add sonnet anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6
openclaw gateway restart

If aliases remove sonnet says alias not found, thatā€™s fine ā€” just run the add command.

Then verify:

# 
openclaw models status
openclaw models aliases list

If openai/sonnet is still in your configured allowlist and you want it gone:

openclaw config unset 'agents.defaults.models["openai/sonnet"]'
openclaw gateway restart

Finally, in Signal send:

/new