> WhatsApp 428 exit causing repeated main session restarts on cold start | Friends of the Crustacean 🦞🤝 | Page 1

grave fox Apr 28, 2026, 11:46 PM

#

I am running 2026.4.26; On cold start, when the WhatsApp channel exits with a 428 (Connection Terminated) during its initial reconnect cycle, the agent:main:main session appears to restart multiple times. Evidence: a webhook registered to that session re-registers 5 times over ~4 minutes, each re-registration correlating with session reinit. This creates contention during startup — cron can't reconcile, Telegram WS handshakes time out, and the gateway is generally noisy.

Two questions:

Should a WhatsApp channel exit (428) be able to trigger a main session restart? Is this expected behavior?

Is there a recommended way to configure startup grace periods or channel/plugin initialization ordering to reduce this kind of cold-start stampede?

sharp ermineBOT Apr 28, 2026, 11:46 PM

#

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

ashen wigeonBOT Apr 28, 2026, 11:50 PM

#

I checked the 2026.4.26 docs/source path: a WhatsApp 428 should not restart agent:main:main. It should be handled as WhatsApp-channel reconnect/restart behavior. 428 is retryable; only 440 conflict / logged-out style states are terminal.

What can happen: WhatsApp connect/disconnect queues system events into the resolved main session, so the main session may look active. But if your webhook is truly re-registering because the main session object is being recreated, that sounds like a bug/regression, not expected behavior.

There isn’t a public “channel startup ordering” knob. Channels start concurrently; the exposed dampening knobs in 2026.4.26 are health/reconnect related:

{
  web: {
    reconnect: {
      initialMs: 5000,
      maxMs: 120000,
      factor: 1.6,
      jitter: 0.3,
      maxAttempts: 0, // keep retrying instead of exiting the WA monitor
    },

#

  },
  gateway: {
    channelHealthCheckMinutes: 10,
    channelStaleEventThresholdMinutes: 45,
    channelMaxRestartsPerHour: 3,
  },
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      healthMonitor: { enabled: false }, // optional: isolate WA from health-monitor restarts
    },
  },
}

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/health and https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/whatsapp

#> WhatsApp 428 exit causing repeated main session restarts on cold start