Bad update

[keen niche]

@indigo salmon Hello. After letting my OpenClaw update itself it did something wrong and now gateway is not working. I have problem like on these screenshots.

[slender nest]

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[indigo salmon]

Hi Nihilius — I can help. I don’t actually see the screenshots in the payload I got, so please paste the text/errors from them if you can.

First thing: please run and paste these outputs:

openclaw --version
openclaw status --all
openclaw gateway status

If the gateway status says RPC/health is down, also grab the latest log tail:

openclaw logs --tail 80

One important nuance: openclaw update is a config/state modernization wizard, not the normal code/package updater, so the version + status output will tell us whether this is a bad install, config migration issue, or service startup problem.

Docs reference: https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq

[keen niche]

I already tried to use doctor to fix it but sadly it did not helped.
"Gateway failed to start: Error: Invalid config at openclaw.json"

and something about uknown models and "Openclaw crashed or closed"

[indigo salmon]

Yep, that points at strict config validation: the gateway refuses to boot if ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json contains an invalid/unknown model reference.

Please run this and paste the exact validation lines — they should name the bad config path/key:

openclaw --version
openclaw config validate
openclaw doctor

If you want to try the safe recovery path first, make a backup, then remove the default model/model allowlist and validate again:

CONFIG="$(openclaw config file)"
cp "$CONFIG" "$CONFIG.bak.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
openclaw config unset agents.defaults.model

openclaw config unset agents.defaults.models
openclaw config validate
openclaw gateway restart

That’s reversible because of the backup. If validation then passes, re-pick a valid model from:

openclaw models list

and set it again through openclaw configure or the config command.

Relevant docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/configuration#strict-validation and https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/troubleshooting#gateway-rejected-invalid-config

[keen niche]

"Gateway failed to start: Error: Invalid config at openclaw.json.
agents.defaults.models.openai/gpt-5.3-codex-spark: Unknown model: openai/gpt-5.3-codex-spark. gpt-5.3-codex-spark is no longer exposed by the OpenAI or Codex catalogs. Use openai/gpt-5.5.
agents.defaults.models.openai-codex/gpt-5.3-codex-spark: Unknown model: openai-codex/gpt-5.3-codex-spark. gpt-5.3-codex-spark is no longer exposed by the OpenAI or Codex catalogs. Use openai/gpt-5.5.
agents.list.0.model.fallbacks.0: Unknown model: openai/gpt-5.3-codex-spark. gpt-5.3-codex-spark is no longer exposed by the OpenAI or Codex catalogs. Use openai/gpt-5.5.
agents.list.0.model.fallbacks.3: Unknown model: openai-codex/gpt-5.3-codex-spark. gpt-5.3-codex-spark is no longer exposed by the OpenAI or Codex catalogs. Use openai/gpt-5.5.
Run "openclaw doctor --fix" to repair, then retry.
OpenClaw crashed or closed.
Press any key to continue . . ."

[indigo salmon]

Ah, that one is specific: your config still references gpt-5.3-codex-spark, which was removed from the catalog. The gateway is failing closed because config validation is strict.

Fix it by editing your config and replacing every old model ref with openai/gpt-5.5.

On Windows, easiest:

notepad "$env:USERPROFILE\.openclaw\openclaw.json"

Find/replace these:

openai/gpt-5.3-codex-spark      -> openai/gpt-5.5
openai-codex/gpt-5.3-codex-spark -> openai/gpt-5.5