thick granite
Discord bots stuck on "awaiting gateway readiness" — never reach "logged in" (2026.5.2)
Environment:
macOS 26.3 (arm64), Mac Mini
Node 22.19.0
OpenClaw 2026.5.2 (8b2a6e5)
Discord plugin: @openclaw/discord 2026.5.2 (external, installed via openclaw plugins install @openclaw/discord --force)
Two Discord bot providers configured (Sentiago + SentiAux), same guild
What happens:
Gateway starts, reports ready with 8 plugins (discord included). Both Discord providers initialize, resolve channels and users, register commands, then log client initialized as <id>; awaiting gateway readiness — and never progress to logged in. No errors in gateway.err.log. Bots appear offline in Discord. Messages are never received.
Relevant log snippet:
[gateway] ready
[discord] [default] starting provider
[discord] channels resolved: 1491171437732561046 (guild:SentiAI)
[discord] channel users resolved: 1484333894370328686
[discord] 107 commands exceeds limit; removing per-skill commands and keeping /skill.
[discord] client initialized as 1491172683457499286; awaiting gateway readiness
[discord] [senti-aux] starting provider (@SentiAux)
[discord] channels resolved: 1491171437732561046 (guild:SentiAI)
[discord] channel users resolved: 1484333894370328686
[discord] 107 commands exceeds limit; removing per-skill commands and keeping /skill.
[discord] client initialized as 1491234302715891712; awaiting gateway readiness
Nothing after this. No logged in, no errors. Gateway probe shows ok and admin-capable.
Error log also showed:
[fetch-timeout] fetch timeout after 2500ms (elapsed 4157ms) url=https://discord.com/api/v10/users/@me
[diagnostic] liveness warning: eventLoopDelayMaxMs=2973.8
Additional context:
On 2026.4.24, experienced a different bug: plugin runtime deps re-staged on every inbound Discord message instead of using cached deps, causing the bot to never respond.
Rolling back to 2026.4.9 with openclaw gateway install --force restores full Discord functionality.
The 2026.5.2 upgrade moved Discord from a bundled plugin to an external plugin at ~/.openclaw/npm/node_modules/@openclaw/discord/. Gateway initially launched without discord in the plugin list (7 plugins) until openclaw plugins install @openclaw/discord --force was run.
Steps to reproduce:
Update to 2026.5.2 via sudo npm install -g openclaw@2026.5.2 --prefix /usr/local
Run openclaw doctor --fix (installs external discord plugin, removes legacy plugin-runtime-deps)
Run openclaw gateway install --force && openclaw gateway restart
Observe Discord clients stuck on "awaiting gateway readiness"
Workaround: Roll back to 2026.4.9.
dapper forge