Bug Description

Cron jobs are having their nextRunAtMs advanced to the next occurrence without actually executing. The scheduler appears to wake up, mark jobs as processed, and move on — but no execution happens.

Evidence

Job State (from jobs.json)

prep-today job:

• Created: Feb 9, 2026
• Schedule: 0 7 * * * (7 AM daily, Europe/Amsterdam)
• lastRunAtMs: missing (never executed)
• nextRunAtMs: Feb 12 (should have run Feb 10 & 11)
• No run log file exists

daily-pm job:

• Schedule: 0 8 * * * (8 AM daily)
• lastRunAtMs: Feb 8, 2026
• nextRunAtMs: Feb 12 (missed Feb 9, 10, 11)
• Run log shows last successful run was Feb 8

Timeline

• ~/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json was modified at 08:00 today (Feb 11)
• Gateway logs show no activity between 21:15 (Feb 10) and 07:49 (Feb 11)
• First activity today was browser startup at 07:49, not cron execution
• No cron-related entries in gateway.log

Configuration

• OpenClaw version: 2026.2.3-1
• No explicit cron config section (using defaults)
• cron.enabled should default to true
• Gateway was running continuously (process started Feb 10 ~9 AM)
• Host machine does NOT sleep (Amphetamine keeping it awake)

Expected Behavior

Jobs should execute at their scheduled times and create run log entries.

Actual Behavior

Jobs are skipped silently. nextRunAtMs advances to the next occurrence without:

• Creating a run log entry
• Executing the payload
• Logging any errors

Reproduction

1. Create a cron job scheduled for a specific time
2. Wait for that time to pass
3. Check ~/.openclaw/cron/runs/<jobId>.jsonl — no entry created
4. Check jobs.json — nextRunAtMs has advanced past the scheduled time

System Info

• macOS (arm64)
• Node v25.6.0
• OpenClaw 2026.2.3-1
• Gateway running in local mode