The agent run failed before producing a reply.

[osu9400]

Install completed successfully but Chat fails every time. Log attached.

openclaw-tray.log

[clawsweeper]

Codex review: keeping this open for maintainer follow-up; there is still a little grit to resolve. Reviewed July 1, 2026, 12:07 PM ET / 16:07 UTC.

Summary
Keep open: current main and latest release include adjacent NO_REPLY and stale-tool rendering fixes, but this fresh v0.6.12 report still shows chat sends returning the gateway's generic assistant failure after successful setup. The attached tray log does not expose the gateway-side agent/model exception, so this is not safe to close or queue as an automatic fix yet.

Reproducibility: no. high-confidence local reproduction was run. The reporter's current v0.6.12 screenshot and tray log provide a source-supported path: setup succeeds, gateway/node connect, chat sends are accepted, and assistant events return the generic failure text instead of replies.

Ways to help us reproduce this

• Add expected vs actual behavior.

Next step
Needs maintainer or reporter follow-up to collect gateway-side logs/diagnostics for the failed agent run before a narrow fix PR can be scoped safely.

Review details

Best possible solution:

Capture the gateway-side agent/model error for the same send path, then fix the owned setup, model-auth, gateway-version, or tray error-surfacing path with focused regression coverage while preserving the merged NO_REPLY and stale-tool fixes.

Do we have a high-confidence way to reproduce the issue?

No high-confidence local reproduction was run. The reporter's current v0.6.12 screenshot and tray log provide a source-supported path: setup succeeds, gateway/node connect, chat sends are accepted, and assistant events return the generic failure text instead of replies.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

Unclear. The narrow fix cannot be chosen confidently until maintainers capture the gateway-side agent/model error behind the generic assistant message; closing as already fixed or auto-implementing from the tray log alone would be premature.

AGENTS.md: found and applied where relevant.

Remaining risk / open question:

• The attached tray log does not include the gateway-side agent exception payload, so the root cause could be gateway/provider configuration or hosted gateway behavior rather than Windows Companion code.
• The reporter's gateway was 2026.6.10 while the log reported 2026.6.11 available; no evidence found proves the newer gateway fixes this failure.

Codex review notes: model internal, reasoning high; reviewed against 4166e0fd63f8.

Label changes

Label changes:

• add P2: A fresh install that cannot produce chat replies is a normal-priority user-blocking bug, but the evidence is currently limited to one environment and no crash or data loss is shown.
• add impact:message-loss: The user cannot receive a usable assistant reply; the visible chat output is only the generic agent-run failure.
• add impact:auth-provider: The failure occurs with a selected Groq model immediately after setup, so model/provider selection or auth remains a plausible affected problem class.
• add issue-rating: 🐚 platinum hermit: Current issue advisory state selects this label.
• add clawsweeper:needs-live-repro: Current issue advisory state selects this label.
• add clawsweeper:no-new-fix-pr: Current issue advisory state selects this label.
• add clawsweeper:needs-maintainer-review: Current issue advisory state selects this label.

Label justifications:

• P2: A fresh install that cannot produce chat replies is a normal-priority user-blocking bug, but the evidence is currently limited to one environment and no crash or data loss is shown.
• impact:message-loss: The user cannot receive a usable assistant reply; the visible chat output is only the generic agent-run failure.
• impact:auth-provider: The failure occurs with a selected Groq model immediately after setup, so model/provider selection or auth remains a plausible affected problem class.

Evidence reviewed

What I checked:

• Repository policy read: AGENTS.md was read fully; its chat, gateway, setup, diagnostics, and validation guidance affected the review routing, but this was a read-only issue review with no code changes or tests run. (AGENTS.md:1, 4166e0fd63f8)
• Reporter screenshot: The downloaded issue screenshot shows the Windows Companion connected, using the Groq Llama 3.3 70B model, and displaying repeated assistant bubbles that say 'The agent run failed before producing a reply.'. (/home/runner/work/clawsweeper/clawsweeper/artifacts/event/codex/proof-scratch/903/issue-screenshot.png)
• Setup and connection succeeded before the failure: The attached log shows startup reconnect to the gateway, successful operator handshake, node pairing, and node registration before chat attempts began. (/home/runner/work/clawsweeper/clawsweeper/artifacts/event/codex/proof-scratch/903/openclaw-tray.log:51)
• Chat sends produced generic assistant error text: The log records accepted chat sends followed by assistant chat.message frames with length 46, matching the visible generic failure text rather than a timeout or disconnected-gateway error in the tray client. (/home/runner/work/clawsweeper/clawsweeper/artifacts/event/codex/proof-scratch/903/openclaw-tray.log:201)
• Current client accepts gateway chat.send responses before logging sent: OpenClawGatewayClient logs 'Sent chat message' only after the chat.send request completes, supporting that the reporter's failure occurs after the gateway accepts the send rather than before request delivery. (src/OpenClaw.Shared/OpenClawGatewayClient.cs:362, 4166e0fd63f8)
• Current main already handles the adjacent NO_REPLY bug: Current main defines exact assistant-only NO_REPLY suppression and has tray regression coverage, but the reporter's visible text is a different gateway-supplied generic failure message. (src/OpenClaw.Shared/Models.cs:1770, 4166e0fd63f8)

Likely related people:

• bkudiess: GitHub commit history shows recent provider-aware chat model picker and slash-command work touching OpenClawGatewayClient, OpenClawChatDataProvider, and ChatModelChoice, which are central to the selected model and chat-send path. (role: recent chat/model contributor; confidence: high; commits: d6b1a72f6d23, a3c5e0bf6fce; files: src/OpenClaw.Shared/OpenClawGatewayClient.cs, src/OpenClaw.Tray.WinUI/Chat/OpenClawChatDataProvider.cs, src/OpenClaw.Chat/ChatModelChoice.cs)
• RBrid: GitHub history shows substantial native chat provider, timeline, reset, and late-frame work adjacent to the live chat rendering and session state paths involved in this report. (role: native chat feature-history contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 5505a85da7df, 3fdfbfad837f, 06ed71f3c01f; files: src/OpenClaw.Tray.WinUI/Chat/OpenClawChatDataProvider.cs, src/OpenClaw.Tray.WinUI/Chat/OpenClawChatTimeline.cs, src/OpenClaw.Shared/OpenClawGatewayClient.cs)
• ranjeshj: History around GatewayLkgVersion and connection hardening points to work on gateway setup, pairing, and LKG pinning, which are plausible if this fresh-install failure is caused by gateway version or setup state. (role: setup and gateway connection contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 45df0763e1ca, dcc77f55e2c9, ca8c6772db81; files: src/OpenClaw.SetupEngine/GatewayLkgVersion.cs, src/OpenClaw.Connection/GatewayConnectionManager.cs, src/OpenClaw.SetupEngine/SetupSteps.cs)
• TurboTheTurtle: Merged PR metadata shows recent current-main work suppressing assistant-only NO_REPLY frames in the same shared/tray chat ingestion surface, which is adjacent but not sufficient for this report. (role: recent adjacent chat-error contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 65b88d8b639f, 797c8be195ff; files: src/OpenClaw.Shared/Models.cs, src/OpenClaw.Shared/OpenClawGatewayClient.cs, src/OpenClaw.Tray.WinUI/Chat/OpenClawChatDataProvider.cs)

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