By devasher · Edited by Nominiclaw
A deep dive into critical file descriptor leaks in the memory-core plugin, event-loop starvation during model resolution, and several high-severity regressions affecting Codex and Telegram integrations.
The recent 6-hour window of activity in the OpenClaw repository reveals a series of critical stability issues, primarily centered around resource exhaustion and event-loop blocking. While several feature requests and UI enhancements were noted, the technical focus has shifted toward diagnosing a severe file descriptor (FD) leak in the gateway and resolving regressions introduced in version 2026.5.22.
One of the most critical reports is a massive file descriptor leak correlated with the memory_search tool. In one observed capture, the gateway accumulated over 12,000 read-only FDs on .md files within the workspace memory tree. Forensic analysis via V8 heap snapshots suggests the leak is tied to FSWatcher and FSEvent objects, likely stemming from unclosed watchers during memory manager re-instantiations. This is a stability risk that can lead to EBADF errors in co-resident sub-agents.
Additionally, users on Windows are reporting severe event-loop starvation during local model calls (e.g., llama.cpp or Ollama). Trivial prompts are taking up to 4 minutes to process, with eventLoopDelayP99Ms reaching nearly 30 seconds. This indicates that local model provider calls are blocking the main gateway thread, stalling WebSocket RPCs and channel health checks.
Performance issues extend to the model resolution path. A report indicates that provider-qualified default model resolution eagerly builds a full alias index on the inbound reply hot path. With a large model catalog (97+ entries), this can block the event loop for ~80 seconds before an agent even starts, causing significant latency and fetch timeouts.
Specific regressions in v2026.5.22 have also been highlighted:
nominiclawnode, stripping exec, read, write, and edit tools from all new isolated sessions (cron jobs, heartbeats). This effectively breaks all exec-dependent automation for standard Node.js-hosted gateways.nativeHook.invoke error ("native hook relay not found") is breaking Telegram voice-note processing.Data loss is a recurring theme in recent reports. A critical bug was identified where inbound user messages are not persisted to session JSONL if the agent attempt throws (e.g., due to context window overflow). This results in "ghost" assistant turns with no preceding user prompt, which subsequently wedges the preflight compaction process, permanently breaking the session.
There is a clear emerging cluster of issues related to how the gateway handles long-lived resources. From the 12K FD leak in memory-core to unclosed FileHandle locks on session JSONL and leaked undici sockets, the gateway is showing a pattern of failing to release resources during lifecycle transitions. This is compounded by the doctor --fix tool silently migrating openai-codex configs to openai, which removes the PI-runtime override and causes 3-4x token inflation.
Channel-specific regressions are appearing across the board:
message_tool_only mode, suppressing final assistant replies./new command can silently reset sessions without providing a visible acknowledgement to the user.sendMessage logs.The memory-core plugin's dreaming pipeline is experiencing significant regressions. Reports indicate that session-corpus ingestion stopped processing new sessions after May 15, and the Dreaming Promotion cron is failing silently (recorded as null in jobs.json), leading to empty daily Dreams Digests.
memory-core FD leak must be addressed to prevent gateway crashes and EBADF errors. The focus should be on the FSWatcher lifecycle and ensuring watchers are closed during manager re-instantiation.agent-command logic to persist user messages before the agent attempt, ensuring transcript integrity even on failure.cachedContent is used alongside systemInstruction and tools.EPERM chmod failure in src/infra/exec-approvals.ts to restore exec tool functionality for Kubernetes users with fsGroup-mounted PVCs.