Description

The Control UI (Dashboard v2, introduced in 2026.3.12 #41503) completely freezes in Chrome 146 — the page loads and the WebSocket connects, but the UI is unresponsive (cannot click on chats, sidebar does not render chat list, no RPC calls are sent). Firefox 148 works perfectly with the same gateway.

Environment

• OpenClaw: 2026.3.13 (61d171a)
• Chrome: 146.0.7680.76 (macOS, Apple Silicon)
• Firefox: 148.0.2 ✅ works
• OS: macOS 15.3 (Darwin 25.3.0 arm64)
• Gateway: loopback (127.0.0.1:18789)

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open http://127.0.0.1:18789/ in Chrome 146
2. Authenticate with gateway token
3. Try to click on any chat in the sidebar

Observed Behavior

• WebSocket connects successfully (webchat connected in gateway log)
• No chat.list or chat.history RPC calls are ever sent — the JS thread is locked
• UI is completely frozen — cannot click, scroll, or open DevTools (Cmd+Option+I)
• Rapid WebSocket disconnect/reconnect cycle visible in logs (code 1001/1006)

Expected Behavior

Chat list loads, chats are clickable (as it works in Firefox 148).

What was ruled out

• ✅ Incognito mode (still freezes)
• ✅ Extensions disabled via --disable-extensions flag (still freezes)
• ✅ GPU disabled via --disable-gpu (still freezes)
• ✅ Fresh Chrome profile with --user-data-dir=/tmp/... (still freezes)
• ✅ Cleared all Chrome caches, local storage, service workers (still freezes)
• ✅ Gateway restart (still freezes)
• ✅ Trimmed large session data / bloated sessions.json (still freezes)
• ✅ JS bundle integrity verified (SHA matches between disk and HTTP serve)

Analysis

Dashboard v2 (#41503) shipped in 2026.3.12. The #45541 fix in 2026.3.13 addressed one re-render storm, but there appears to be a deeper Chrome 146-specific rendering issue with the Lit web components used in the new dashboard. Firefox layout engine handles the same components without issue.

Chrome 146 landed March 10 with Skia, WebML, and V8 changes. The freeze appears to happen during initial Lit shadow DOM render before any data is fetched — suggesting a Chrome 146 regression in custom element / shadow DOM rendering that Dashboard v2 triggers.

Workaround

Use Firefox for the Control UI until this is resolved.