..

[loud crane]

[logs] gateway disconnected, reconnecting in 2s...
[logs] gateway disconnected, reconnecting in 5s...

how to fix?

[plush pumice]

First thing: what does openclaw --version say?

That reconnect loop is generic: it just means the client/channel lost the Gateway WebSocket. The useful fix depends on whether the gateway is stopped, crashing, on the wrong port/config, or blocked by auth.

Run this ladder and paste the output/log error around the first failure:

openclaw --version
openclaw status
openclaw status --all
openclaw gateway probe
openclaw gateway status
openclaw doctor
openclaw channels status --probe
openclaw logs --follow

[plush pumice]

Common quick fixes from the docs:

• If gateway status says runtime stopped/crashing: run openclaw doctor, then restart the gateway.
• If it says port conflict / EADDRINUSE: another gateway or process is already listening; keep one gateway per machine unless you intentionally isolated ports/config.
• If logs mention auth/token/device/pairing: it’s usually token drift or a device scope/pairing issue, not a channel bug.
• If this is after an update: version mismatch is very plausible, so the version output matters.

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq and https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/troubleshooting

[plush pumice]

The key error is here:

launchctl bootstrap failed: 125: Domain does not support specified action
... requires a logged-in macOS GUI session for this user (gui/501)

So the gateway is not actually running. openclaw logs --follow is reconnecting because nothing is listening on 127.0.0.1:18789.

Fix path on macOS:

# run this from the Mac desktop session as carbon
# not over SSH, not sudo
openclaw gateway install --force
openclaw gateway restart

[plush pumice]

openclaw gateway status

If this Mac is headless/remote, sign into the macOS desktop as carbon first, or enable auto-login for that user so macOS creates the gui/501 launchd session after boot. The current LaunchAgent install can’t load without that user GUI session.

After the gateway is reachable, update too:

openclaw update
openclaw doctor

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/troubleshooting and https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/background-process