Click Claw

OpenClaw gateway not responding? The 4-layer check that finds it fast

Your OpenClaw gateway goes quiet. Messages stop arriving, no error is thrown, and the chat just hangs. The instinct is to poke at random until something works — but there's a faster way.

Check in dependency order, because each layer sits on the one below it. If a lower layer is broken, everything above it looks broken too, so you want to find the *lowest* failing layer first.

1. Is the CLI even there?

which openclaw

This rules out PATH and install problems in two seconds. If openclaw isn't found, nothing else matters — fix the install first.

2. Is the config intact?

OpenClaw keeps an openclaw.json.last-good right next to openclaw.json. That file exists *because* configs get corrupted. Diff the two:

diff openclaw.json openclaw.json.last-good

If they differ in ways you didn't intend, your config drifted — restore the last-good copy.

3. Is the gateway process actually alive?

Check the recorded PID, or probe the gateway directly:

openclaw gateway probe

A stale PID file with nothing actually listening is the single most common "silent" failure. The gateway died, left its PID file behind, and everything downstream waits forever.

4. Is the port actually listening?

lsof -iTCP:<your gateway port> -sTCP:LISTEN

If nothing is bound to the port, the gateway isn't running — go back to step 3. If something *is* listening but it's not OpenClaw, you have a port conflict.

Only then: the channel

Telegram, Discord, Slack — check the messaging channel last. Roughly 90% of "it's broken" moments are a dead gateway at layer 3 or 4. Starting at the channel (where most people begin) just burns ten minutes ruling out the wrong thing.

The shortcut

OpenClaw ships openclaw doctor --fix, which repairs a lot of the config / gateway / channel problems above automatically — run it first if you're in a hurry.

If you'd rather not run these by hand every time, Click Claw walks the whole chain in one click and points at exactly which layer broke — handy if you're not living in a terminal. But the order above is the important part: find the lowest failing layer first, and you stop guessing.