Summary

The message tool and cron announce delivery consistently fail with "No active WhatsApp Web listener (account: default)" error, even though openclaw status shows WhatsApp as "OK · linked". This causes all cron jobs with delivery.mode: "announce" to fail with "cron announce delivery failed".

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.3.1 (2a8ac97)
• OS: Linux 6.1.0-9-amd64 (x64)
• Channel: WhatsApp (single account: default)
• Target: WhatsApp group chat ([email protected])
• Gateway: systemd service, local loopback

Steps to Reproduce

1. Configure WhatsApp channel with a linked account
2. Verify openclaw status shows WhatsApp as "OK · linked"
3. Create a cron job with delivery.mode: "announce" targeting a WhatsApp group
4. Wait for the job to run, or manually call the message tool:

   {
     "action": "send",
     "channel": "whatsapp",
     "target": "[email protected]",
     "message": "Test message"
   }

Expected Behavior

• message tool should successfully send messages to WhatsApp groups
• Cron jobs with announce delivery should successfully deliver to WhatsApp groups
• If WhatsApp connection is unavailable, openclaw status should reflect that

Actual Behavior

• openclaw status shows: WhatsApp │ ON │ OK │ linked · +8613751804347 · auth 9m ago · accounts 1
• But message tool fails with:

  Error: No active WhatsApp Web listener (account: default). Start the gateway, then link WhatsApp with: openclaw channels login --channel whatsapp --account default.
  

• All cron jobs fail with: lastError: "cron announce delivery failed"
• However: Inbound messages work fine (agent can receive and reply to messages in the same group)

Logs

2026-03-07T08:20:56.669Z error [tools] message failed: Error: No active WhatsApp Web listener (account: default).
2026-03-07T09:13:13.344Z error [tools] message failed: Error: No active WhatsApp Web listener (account: default).
2026-03-07T09:35:43.328Z error [tools] message failed: Error: No active WhatsApp Web listener (account: default).

Cron job state:

{
  "lastStatus": "error",
  "lastError": "cron announce delivery failed",
  "lastDeliveryStatus": "unknown",
  "consecutiveErrors": 2
}

Impact

• Affected: All cron jobs with announce delivery to WhatsApp
• Severity: High - scheduled automations silently fail to deliver output
• Frequency: 100% reproducible
• Workaround: Use delivery.mode: "none" and manually call message tool in the job payload (but this also fails with the same error)

Additional Context

• The agent can successfully receive messages from WhatsApp groups and reply to them (auto-reply works)
• Only proactive sending via message tool or announce delivery fails
• This suggests the WhatsApp Web listener is only active during inbound message handling, not available for outbound-only operations
• Similar issues exist for other channels (Discord [Bug] Cron announce delivery reports 'failed' despite successful Discord DM delivery #21041, multi-account [Refactor]: Unify channel account-list helpers with binding-aware default resolution #30967), but this is specific to WhatsApp

Related Issues

• Cron job WhatsApp delivery intermittently fails with 'cron delivery target is missing' #17599 - WhatsApp delivery intermittently fails (20% failure rate, DM target)
• [Bug]: Isolated cron jobs with announce delivery fail with pairing required (scope-upgrade) #22298 - Isolated cron announce delivery fails with "pairing required"
• [Bug] Cron announce delivery reports 'failed' despite successful Discord DM delivery #21041 - Discord announce delivery reports failed despite success