Why does my OpenClaw gateway crash every 16 seconds?

The Bonjour/ciao mDNS plugin throws unhandled CIAO PROBING CANCELLED rejections that crash the Node.js process. This affects v2026.4.24 on headless Linux, WSL, and some Windows setups.

How do I fix OpenClaw Bonjour crash loop?

Disable the Bonjour plugin by setting OPENCLAW_DISABLE_BONJOUR=1 or editing ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json to set bonjour.enabled to false.

Does OpenClaw Bonjour crash affect Docker deployments?

Yes, Bonjour/mDNS crashes affect any headless deployment including Docker, VPS, and cloud instances. Compose-based gateways on bridge networking should have Bonjour disabled by default.

Is the OpenClaw Bonjour crash fixed in v2026.4.25?

The v2026.4.25 beta includes fixes that suppress ciao cancellation failures and auto-disable Bonjour after repeated failures, but the gateway keeps running.

What causes CIAO PROBING CANCELLED in OpenClaw?

The @homebridge/ciao library mDNS advertising gets stuck in probing state. After ~12 seconds, the watchdog cancels the operation, and the unhandled rejection crashes the gateway process.

← Back to dashboard

clawsmith.com/signal/openclaw-bonjour-mdns-gateway-crash-loop-v2026-4-24

⚠ IssueWide OpenLive

Bonjour/mDNS plugin crashes OpenClaw gateway in 16-second loop on headless Linux

The @homebridge/ciao mDNS library causes unhandled CIAO PROBING CANCELLED rejections that crash the gateway process. 12+ GitHub issues filed. Affects all VPS/cloud and headless deployments running v2026.4.24. Workaround: disable bonjour plugin.

Product Idea from this Signal

A CLI tool that aggregates community stability reports per OpenClaw version and blocks updates that other users on your platform and channel combo report as broken

OpenClaw ships a new release roughly every two days, and three consecutive updates (v2026.4.24, 4.25, 4.26) broke gateways, Discord, Telegram, and WhatsApp for thousands of users. The built-in stable channel with delay jitter still delivers broken versions because there is no feedback loop from the community. This tool collects pass/fail reports per version per platform/channel/OS combination, exposes a pre-update check via CLI, and automatically delays updates until the target version reaches a community-validated stability threshold for your exact deployment fingerprint.

CLIOPEN-SOURCERELIABILITYCOMMUNITYDEVTOOL

CompetitiveView Opportunity →