openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug]: message tool fails sending to Telegram forum topics (announce fallback works)

Bug: Telegram message tool fails sending to forum topic, announce delivery works as fallback

OpenClaw version: 2026.5.3 Channel: Telegram (forum/group with topics)

Description

When a cron job agent tries to use the message tool to send to a Telegram forum topic, the tool call fails with:

⚠️ ✉️ Message: `4` failed

However, the system-level announce delivery to the same topic succeeds every time (via fallback). This suggests the message tool has a routing/parameter issue with forum topic targets that the announce path does not.

Reproduction

1. Create an isolated cron job with delivery.mode = "announce" targeting a Telegram forum topic (e.g., to: "-1003707963225", threadId: "4")
2. In the cron prompt, instruct the agent to use the message tool: action=send, channel=telegram, target=-1003707963225, threadId=4
3. The agent generates the content successfully
4. The message tool call fails with ⚠️ ✉️ Message: '4' failed
5. The announce fallback delivers the message correctly to the topic

Evidence from run history

Cron job: "Morning Brief" (5c5d818b) Target: Telegram group -1003707963225, topic 4

Recent runs showing the pattern:

This pattern repeats consistently. The agent always generates valid content, the message tool always fails, and announce always rescues it.

The same pattern affects multiple cron jobs targeting different topics (2, 4, 19, 20). Topic 20 (TikTok DB Sync) has the same Message: 20 failed pattern.

Diagnostic details from a failed run

{
  "diagnostics": {
    "summary": "⚠️ ✉️ Message: `4` failed",
    "entries": [
      {"ts": 1778538993776, "source": "tool", "severity": "error", "message": "⚠️ ✉️ Message: `4` failed"},
      {"ts": 1778538995181, "source": "agent-run", "severity": "error", "message": "⚠️ ✉️ Message: `4` failed"}
    ]
  },
  "delivery": {
    "intended": {"channel": "telegram", "to": "-1003707963225:4", "source": "explicit"},
    "resolved": {"ok": true, "channel": "telegram", "to": "-1003707963225", "threadId": 4, "source": "explicit"},
    "fallbackUsed": true,
    "delivered": true
  }
}

Expected behavior

The message tool should successfully send to forum topics when provided with target (group chat ID) and threadId (topic ID).

Workaround

Relying on delivery.mode = "announce" with fallbackUsed: true — this works reliably but means the message tool is unreliable for programmatic sends from within agent runs.

Related

• #76554 (fixed in 5.3 for final reply delivery, but message tool itself still fails for forum topics)

Environment

• Telegram forum group: -1003707963225
• Topics tested: 2, 4, 19, 20
• OpenClaw: 2026.5.3
• Agent runtime: isolated cron sessions