Why did my OpenClaw plugins disappear?

Upgrading v2026.5.2 to v2026.5.3-1 silently drops external plugins due to stale persisted registry.

How to fix missing plugins?

Run openclaw plugins install for each external plugin to reinstall.

Which plugins are affected?

All externally-installed plugins including @openclaw/whatsapp and @openclaw/bluebubbles.

Yes, fix recovers managed-npm external plugins from owned npm root.

Does OpenClaw warn about dropped plugins?

No — no warning or error is logged, making this a silent failure.

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clawsmith.com/signal/openclaw-external-plugins-silently-dropped-upgrade-77266

⚠ IssueWide OpenCoreLive

OpenClaw Upgrade Silently Drops External Plugins: Messaging Channels Go Dark (#77266)

Upgrading from v2026.5.2 to v2026.5.3-1 silently drops externally-installed plugins. No warning logged. WhatsApp and messaging channels disappear. Root cause: stale persisted registry hides managed-npm external plugins. Beta release blocker.

Product Idea from this Signal

A CLI tool that runs pre-flight compatibility checks before OpenClaw upgrades and auto-rolls back when the gateway fails to start

405 ▲

OpenClaw ships 13+ releases per month and each one risks breaking gateway startup, scope pairing, channel connections, or plugin loading. Users upgrading from v2026.4.15 to v2026.4.21 hit a scope upgrade pending approval bug that locked them out of the primary interface entirely. Others saw 13-minute silent hangs on first boot, high CPU from RPC latency spikes, and external plugins silently dropped. This tool snapshots the current working state before upgrade, runs compatibility checks against the target version's known issues, and auto-reverts if the gateway fails health checks after upgrade.

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