Openclaw Feishu Bot Troubleshooting

OpenClaw Feishu Bot Troubleshooting

A practical diagnostic and recovery skill for OpenClaw Feishu channel issues, distilled from real production debugging sessions.

When to use this skill

• Feishu bot is online but does not reply
• Messages are received but no reply reaches the user
• A DM unexpectedly returns openclaw pairing approve feishu <CODE>
• Two Feishu bot windows appear to be "the wrong bot"
• openclaw pairing list feishu shows nothing even though a user just saw a pairing code
• Agent prep takes 60-180 seconds
• Gateway shows unreachable, degrades badly, or keeps restarting
• Outbound Feishu replies fail because plugin / SDK setup is broken

Core rule: trust session JSONL over UI names

When Feishu bot identity is in doubt, do not trust the window name the human sees in Feishu.

Use session JSONL as the source of truth:

• session file: ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/*.jsonl
• fields to trust:
  • sessionKey
  • message_id
  • sender_id
  • message text
  • timestamps

Why this matters:

• Feishu-side display names can drift from backend app/account identity
• Gateway logs often show timeline events but not enough message-body detail
• UI assumptions like "this window is bytebot" may be wrong even when the user is acting in good faith

Quick diagnostic flow

1. Check Gateway health                 → openclaw channels status --probe
2. Check current DM policy              → inspect channels.feishu.dmPolicy
3. Check whether a pairing is actually pending
4. Verify receipt vs reply in logs
5. If two bot windows seem swapped      → inspect session JSONL, not UI names
6. If prep is slow                      → inspect session bloat
7. If a pairing code cannot be found    → decide between re-pair vs open DM
8. Verify both Feishu accounts again    → send unique test strings

Lesson 1: Distinguish "not receiving" from "not replying"

Symptom

User sends a message, bot never responds.

Diagnosis

Common causes

1. Pairing policy (dmPolicy: pairing)

   • User appears unpaired
   • DM is intercepted before normal assistant handling
   • Fix: approve the code, or switch DM policy to open

2. Plugin disabled

   • openclaw-lark is required for Feishu sending
   • Fix: enable the plugin

3. Missing SDK

   • Error like Cannot find package '@larksuiteoapi/node-sdk'
   • Fix: install the missing package in the OpenClaw runtime

Lesson 2: Dual-bot identity confusion is usually a mapping/label problem, not a routing bug

Symptom

The human says:

• "I sent to bytebot, but the reply says it is tobybot"
• "I sent to tobybot, but it returned a pairing code"

What to verify

Check all three layers separately:

1. Configured accounts

   • channels.feishu.defaultAccount
   • channels.feishu.accounts.default.appId
   • channels.feishu.accounts.secondary.appId

2. Stable sender/chat identifiers

   • sender_id (who the DM session is with)
   • chat_id / direct chat id if available elsewhere

3. Session truth

   • which session JSONL actually contains the user’s exact test message
   • what that same session says about accountId, sender_id, and self-identity

Proven method

Use unique test strings and then trace them back.

Examples:

RESET-BYTE-1001
RESET-TOBY-1001
PAIR-CHECK-1104

Then search:

rg -n "RESET-BYTE-1001|RESET-TOBY-1001|PAIR-CHECK-1104" \
  ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions \
  /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).log

Interpretation rule

If the session containing the exact test message says:

• accountId = secondary
• matching sender_id = ...
• self-report = tobybot

then that Feishu window is really the secondary bot from OpenClaw’s point of view, even if the human thought it was bytebot.

Key lesson

When the user-facing bot name and backend identity disagree, the most likely issue is:

• Feishu-side label / human identification mismatch, not
• OpenClaw randomly swapping the two configured accounts internally.

Lesson 3: If a pairing code was shown but pairing list is empty, do not over-trust the code

Symptom

A user reports a live code such as 7RWF6NYK, but:

openclaw pairing list feishu

returns:

No pending feishu pairing requests.

and approving the code fails:

No pending pairing request found for code: 7RWF6NYK

Meaning

This usually means one of these:

1. the code is stale and no longer pending
2. the message that generated it was handled outside the currently inspected pending state
3. the fastest safe recovery is to stop requiring pairing for Feishu DMs

Recommended decision rule

If the operational goal is make the two Feishu bots usable now, and repeated pairing checks still show nothing pending, prefer:

"channels": {
  "feishu": {
    "dmPolicy": "open"
  }
}

Then restart Gateway and re-test both Feishu accounts.

Tradeoff

• pairing: stricter, but can create confusing blocked DMs after migration or identity drift
• open: simpler and often the right choice when the bot is only for trusted personal use

Lesson 4: Session reset can rule out session corruption, but it does not fix Feishu-side identity confusion

Symptom

You suspect OpenClaw cached the wrong Feishu DM session.

Safe test

Back up and move only the relevant Feishu DM session files first.

Pattern:

mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions-backup-feishu-reset-<timestamp>
mv ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/<session-id>* \
   ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions-backup-feishu-reset-<timestamp>/

Then re-test with fresh unique strings.

Interpretation

If after reset:

• one test message still lands in default, and
• the other still lands in secondary,

then the issue is not session corruption inside OpenClaw. It is more likely naming / pairing policy / human-facing identity confusion.

Important lesson

Do not jump straight to deleting all sessions. Use targeted backup-and-reset first.

Lesson 5: Agent prep slowness is usually session bloat

Symptom

Agent prep takes 60-180 seconds. Gateway becomes sluggish or unreachable.

Root cause

Trajectory/debug session files accumulate over time and slow startup.

Diagnosis

du -sh /workspace/projects/agents/*/sessions/
ls -la /workspace/projects/agents/main/sessions/*.trajectory*

Fix

cd /workspace/projects/agents/main/sessions/
rm -f *.trajectory.jsonl *.trajectory-path.json *.deleted.* *.reset.*

Lesson 6: Gateway stuck often means event-loop starvation

Symptom

openclaw status or channel probes show timeouts or degraded liveness.

Typical signatures

liveness warning: eventLoopDelayP99Ms=...
stuck session: ...
Gateway event loop degraded: reasons=event_loop_utilization,cpu

Fix

1. Stop repeated restart loops
2. Clean session bloat if present
3. Restart Gateway once
4. Re-probe channels before more invasive changes

Lesson 7: Verify Feishu platform side last

Only after OpenClaw-side checks are exhausted:

1. Confirm im.message.receive_v1 is subscribed
2. Confirm connection mode is websocket / long connection as intended
3. Verify App ID / App Secret are correct
4. Check bot permissions

Practical command set

Channel and policy inspection

openclaw channels status --probe
openclaw pairing list feishu

Inspect config directly if needed:

python3 - <<'PY'
import json, os
p=os.path.expanduser('~/.openclaw/openclaw.json')
with open(p) as f:
    data=json.load(f)
fei=((data.get('channels') or {}).get('feishu') or {})
print('defaultAccount =', fei.get('defaultAccount'))
print('dmPolicy =', fei.get('dmPolicy'))
for name, acct in (fei.get('accounts') or {}).items():
    print(name, acct.get('appId'))
PY

Pairing attempts

openclaw pairing approve feishu <CODE>

Session truth search

rg -n "<UNIQUE_TEST_STRING>|<message_id>|<sender_id>" \
  ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions \
  /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).log \
  ~/.openclaw/logs

Safe Feishu DM reset

mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions-backup-feishu-reset-<timestamp>
mv ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/<session-stem>* \
   ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions-backup-feishu-reset-<timestamp>/

Open DM fallback

Edit config:

"channels": {
  "feishu": {
    "dmPolicy": "open"
  }
}

Then restart:

openclaw gateway restart
openclaw channels status --probe

Decision checklist

Use this order:

• Did the message reach OpenClaw at all?
• Is DM blocked by pairing rather than a send failure?
• Did I verify identity with session JSONL instead of Feishu window names?
• Did I test with unique strings rather than conversational text?
• If pairing is empty, is switching Feishu DM to open the simpler operational fix?
• Before deleting all sessions, did I try a targeted backup/reset first?

Files in this skill

• scripts/inspect-feishu-channel.sh — one-shot diagnostic script
• scripts/clean-session-bloat.sh — safe session cleanup
• references/common-error-patterns.md — error log → cause mapping