Post-upgrade to 5.12 : binary older than last config written

[soft quiver]

Gateway restart blocked: Refusing to restart the gateway service because this OpenClaw binary (2026.5.7) is older than the config last written by OpenClaw 2026.5.12.
Tip: Run the newer openclaw binary on PATH, or reinstall the intended gateway service from the newer install.
Tip: Set OPENCLAW_ALLOW_OLDER_BINARY_DESTRUCTIVE_ACTIONS=1 only for an intentional downgrade or recovery action.

My terminal OpenClaw shows 5.7 despite having upgraded to 5.12 earlier today.

[lethal igloo]

This is almost certainly a stale binary / service-entrypoint mismatch, not config corruption.

First find which openclaw your shell is actually running:

openclaw --version
type -a openclaw
npm ls -g openclaw --depth=0 2>/dev/null
pnpm list -g openclaw --depth 0 2>/dev/null
openclaw gateway status

Then update the install manager/path that type -a openclaw shows first. For example:

npm i -g openclaw@latest

[lethal igloo]

hash -r
openclaw --version
openclaw gateway install --force
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw health

If your first openclaw is from pnpm, use pnpm add -g openclaw@latest instead. If you are on macOS with nvm, also check whether the LaunchAgent is pinned to an old nvm Node/global package path; reinstalling the gateway service with the newly resolved 5.12 binary is the important bit.

I would not use OPENCLAW_ALLOW_OLDER_BINARY_DESTRUCTIVE_ACTIONS=1 here unless you are intentionally downgrading. It bypasses the guard; it does not fix the stale binary on PATH.

Docs for the relevant flow:
https://docs.openclaw.ai/install/updating
https://docs.openclaw.ai/install
https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/troubleshooting

[soft quiver]

I am on Ubuntu.

[lethal igloo]

On Ubuntu, focus on two places: the shell PATH and the systemd user service.

Run this first:

openclaw --version
type -a openclaw
openclaw gateway status
systemctl --user cat openclaw-gateway 2>/dev/null | sed -n '1,120p'

If type -a openclaw shows the old 2026.5.7 binary first, update that install. Usually one of these:

npm i -g openclaw@latest
# or, if your first openclaw path is pnpm-managed:

[lethal igloo]

pnpm add -g openclaw@latest

Then clear bash’s command cache and re-check:

hash -r
openclaw --version

Once that says 2026.5.12, refresh the systemd service so it points at the new binary:

openclaw gateway install --force
systemctl --user daemon-reload

[lethal igloo]

openclaw gateway restart
openclaw gateway status

If systemctl --user cat openclaw-gateway shows an old absolute path, gateway install --force is the part that rewrites it. If it still comes back as 5.7 after reinstall, paste the output of type -a openclaw and the ExecStart= line from systemctl --user cat openclaw-gateway.