Bug type

Behavior bug (incorrect output/state without crash)

Beta release blocker

No

Summary

Summary

After upgrading OpenClaw from 2026.4.23 to 2026.5.5 on WSL2, WhatsApp stopped working.

The config still contained channels.whatsapp.enabled = true, but the gateway did not load the whatsapp plugin, and sending messages failed with:

Channel is unavailable: whatsapp

The issue was resolved only after manually installing the external plugin:

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/whatsapp
openclaw gateway restart

After that, the gateway loaded WhatsApp normally and message sending worked again.

Environment

OpenClaw source/install: npm global install
From version: 2026.4.23
To version: 2026.5.5
OS: WSL2 / Linux
Node: Node 22
npm: npm 10.x

Symptoms

WhatsApp stopped working after upgrade
Sending via WhatsApp returned:
Channel is unavailable: whatsapp
Gateway was otherwise healthy after systemd/WSL fixes
channels.whatsapp was still present in config and enabled
But gateway plugin list did not include whatsapp

Relevant observations

Config contained a WhatsApp channel block like:

"channels": {
"whatsapp": {
"enabled": true
}
}

But plugins.entries did not include WhatsApp initially.

Gateway plugin list showed only:

browser
device-pair
file-transfer
google
memory-core
phone-control
talk-voice
After adding WhatsApp to plugin config, OpenClaw reported:

plugins.entries.whatsapp: plugin not installed: whatsapp

Then after manual install:

Bash

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/whatsapp
openclaw gateway restart

Gateway startup showed:

@openclaw/whatsapp ID=whatsapp Status=enabled Version=2026.5.6
channels/whatsapp [default] starting provider
gateway/channels/whatsapp Listening for personal WhatsApp inbound messages.

At that point WhatsApp sending worked again.

Steps to reproduce

Steps to reproduce

1. Start from an existing setup on 2026.4.23 with WhatsApp configured and working
2. Upgrade to 2026.5.5
3. Restart gateway
4. Try sending a WhatsApp message
5. Observe failure: Channel is unavailable: whatsapp

Expected behavior

Expected behavior

If WhatsApp is already configured and enabled before upgrade, upgrading should not leave the channel unavailable due to the external plugin not being present/loaded silently.

Possible expected behaviors:

auto-install required official plugin during migration/upgrade, or
emit a very explicit startup error/warning telling the user to install @openclaw/whatsapp, or
preserve prior working WhatsApp functionality without manual intervention

Actual behavior

Actual behavior

Upgrade completed, but WhatsApp became unavailable until the external plugin was manually installed.

Workaround

bash
openclaw plugins install @openclaw/whatsapp
openclaw gateway restart

OpenClaw version

2026.5.5

Operating system

Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS

Install method

Installed globally with npm (npm install -g openclaw) in WSL2 Ubuntu, launched from the terminal.

Model

Effective model under test: openclaw 2026.5.5

Provider / routing chain

Local OpenClaw gateway in WSL2 (127.0.0.1:18789) with WhatsApp channel/provider via @openclaw/whatsapp plugin.

Additional provider/model setup details

Notes

There was also a WSL2/systemd issue in parallel, but after fixing gateway runtime, the remaining root cause for WhatsApp was still that the whatsapp plugin was not loaded/installed.

This seems like either:

a migration/upgrade bug
missing dependency/install step
or missing upgrade documentation for WhatsApp users

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

1. bug before fix: 

[tools] message failed: Channel is unavailable: whatsapp

2. plugin before fix

http server listening (7 plugins: browser, device-pair, file-transfer, google, memory-core, phone-control, talk-voice)

3. error which pointed root cause out

plugins.entries.whatsapp: plugin not installed: whatsapp
install the official external plugin with:
openclaw plugins install @openclaw/whatsapp

4. State after fix

@openclaw/whatsapp ID=whatsapp Status=enabled Version=2026.5.6
channels/whatsapp [default] starting provider (+358xxxxxx)
gateway/channels/whatsapp Listening for personal WhatsApp inbound messages.

Impact and severity

Affected: whatsapp use
Consequence: whatsapp do not connect to openclaw

Additional information

No response