Cron auto-update broke OpenClaw due to config validation error
Auto-update failure and manual recovery
A user reported that a cron job configured to automatically check for and install new OpenClaw versions failed during an upgrade. The update process reported a configuration validation error in the file ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json, specifically stating that agents.defaults.cliBackends was an unrecognized field. This error resulted in a lost connection to OpenClaw.
The fix
To resolve the issue, the user manually edited the configuration file. They deleted the entire agents.defaults.cliBackends section from ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json. After making this change, they executed the command openclaw gateway restart. Following this manual intervention, OpenClaw started working again.
This incident highlights a potential risk when automating updates for tools that rely on specific configuration schemas, as a new version may deprecate or change existing fields, breaking automated processes until manually corrected.
📖 Read the full source: r/openclaw
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