Issue Station
Sign In
Tools hereToolbox

openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Bug: browser tool times out despite CDP connection working (Playwright can connect directly) [1 participants]

Official PRs (…)
ON THIS PAGE

Recommended Tools

×6

Utilities matched from this issue’s tags and category — try them while you read without losing context.

GitHub issue graph ai analysis

Paste a GitHub issue URL. We fetch that issue, discover linked issues from bodies/comments/timeline, collect linked pull requests, and produce a structured English report.

The report is written in English Markdown for sharing and archival.

Helpful · Quick feedback

Loading…
GitHub stats
openclaw/openclaw#72653•Fetched 2026-04-28 06:33:38
View on GitHub
Comments
0
Participants
1
Timeline
0
Reactions
0
Author
sylviazhang2006-designsylviazhang2006-design
Participants
sylviazhang2006-designsylviazhang2006-design

Error Message

The browser tool consistently times out with error "timed out. Restart the OpenClaw gateway. Do NOT retry the browser tool", despite the CDP endpoint being fully functional.

RAW_BUFFERClick to expand / collapse

Bug Description

The browser tool consistently times out with error "timed out. Restart the OpenClaw gateway. Do NOT retry the browser tool", despite the CDP endpoint being fully functional.

Environment

  • OpenClaw: 2026.4.24 (upgraded from 2026.4.15, issue existed in both versions)
  • OS: Ubuntu 24.04 (Linux 6.8.0-101-generic x64)
  • Node.js: v22.22.2
  • Chromium: 145.0.7632.6 (Playwright chromium-1208)
  • CDP endpoint: http://localhost:9222 (headless, no-sandbox)

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Start Chromium with CDP
  2. browser status returns cdpReady: true, cdpHttp: true
  3. browser open / browser snapshot / browser navigate all timeout

What Works

  • curl http://localhost:9222/json returns page targets correctly
  • Playwright connecting directly to the same CDP endpoint works perfectly (opens Google, gets title)

What Does Not Work

  • All browser tool operations (open, snapshot, navigate) timeout

Troubleshooting Done

  • Added --disable-dev-shm-usage - no effect
  • Added --disable-gpu - no effect
  • Verified page targets exist - not missing
  • Changed attachOnly to false - no effect
  • Restarted Chromium multiple times - no effect
  • Upgraded OpenClaw 2026.4.15 to 2026.4.24 - no effect
  • Playwright direct CDP connection works - confirms CDP is fine

Suspicion

The OpenClaw browser plugin may have a bug in its CDP transport/handshake layer that causes it to hang despite the underlying connection being available.

extent analysis

TL;DR

The OpenClaw browser plugin likely has a bug in its CDP transport/handshake layer, causing timeouts despite a functional CDP endpoint.

Guidance

  • Investigate the OpenClaw browser plugin's CDP transport/handshake implementation for potential issues, focusing on areas where it differs from the working Playwright direct CDP connection.
  • Verify that the browser tool is correctly configured to use the CDP endpoint at http://localhost:9222, ensuring that there are no misconfigurations or version mismatches.
  • Consider using a debugging tool or logging mechanism to inspect the communication between the OpenClaw browser plugin and the CDP endpoint, which may reveal the root cause of the timeout.
  • Since Playwright can connect directly to the CDP endpoint without issues, compare the connection establishment and handshake processes between Playwright and the OpenClaw browser plugin to identify potential differences.

Example

No specific code snippet can be provided without more details on the OpenClaw browser plugin's implementation. However, comparing the CDP connection establishment code in Playwright with the equivalent code in the OpenClaw browser plugin could be insightful.

Notes

The issue seems specific to the OpenClaw browser plugin's interaction with the CDP endpoint, and resolving it may require modifications to the plugin itself. Given that the problem persists across different versions of OpenClaw and various troubleshooting steps have been taken, a deeper investigation into the plugin's CDP handling is necessary.

Recommendation

Apply workaround: Given the suspicion of a bug in the OpenClaw browser plugin and the fact that Playwright can connect directly to the CDP endpoint without issues, consider using Playwright or a similar library directly for browser automation tasks as a temporary workaround until the OpenClaw browser plugin issue is resolved.

Vote matrix · Quick signals

Works
Did the solution work? Tap to confirm.
Easy Fix
Was it a quick fix?
Time Saver
Did it save you time?
Blocking
Was it severely blocking?
Common Issue
Are others likely hitting this too?
Flaky / Intermittent
Is it intermittent?
Verified / Reproducible
Can you reproduce it reliably?
Loading…
#parallel task#integration issue#index setup#retrieval issue#search optimization

Still need to ship something?

×6

Another batch ranked right after the header list — different links, same matching logic.

Back to top recommendations

TRENDING

openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Bug: browser tool times out despite CDP connection working (Playwright can connect directly) [1 participants]