openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug] Play Store Android app (v2026.4.5) cannot pair against gateways ≥ v2026.5.12 — protocol mismatch v3 vs v4 [1 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

The Play Store Android client (com.coderred.andclaw v2026.4.5) speaks gateway WS pairing protocol v3 only, while any gateway released since v2026.5.12 advertises probeMin=4. The pairing handshake fails with protocol mismatch and the app cannot connect. Both the Play Store stable and beta channels are still on v2026.4.5 as of 2026-05-19, and no newer Android binary appears to be published anywhere (the community fork AidanPark/openclaw-android is at v0.4.0, March 2026 — older than the Play Store build).

This means the Android-Talk-Mode realtime feature shipped in the gateway v2026.5.18 changelog (#83130 — "Android: switch Talk Mode to realtime Gateway relay voice sessions...") is currently unreachable from any released Android client.

Reproduction

1. Install OpenClaw gateway ≥ v2026.5.12 (e.g. npm i -g [email protected]).
2. Run the gateway with Tailscale Serve exposing wss://<host>.ts.net (also reproduces on plain LAN ws://).
3. Generate a fresh pairing QR with openclaw qr (verified payload contains \"url\":\"wss://...\").
4. Scan it from the Play Store Android app v2026.4.5 → onboarding final step.
5. Tap Connect.

Expected

App pairs, appears in openclaw devices list.

Actual

Gateway logs (every retry):

``` [ws] protocol mismatch conn=<uuid> peer=127.0.0.1:xxxxx->127.0.0.1:18789 client=<DeviceName> ui v2026.4.5 min=3 max=3 expected=4 probeMin=4 instance=<uuid> [ws] closed before connect ua=okhttp/5.3.2 code=1000 reason=bye ```

App shows:

``` Connection Failed Status: Gateway error: protocol mismatch ```

No entry is created on the gateway side. App retries every ~3 seconds with the same result.

Environment

• Gateway: openclaw 2026.5.18 (50a2481), Ubuntu 24.04 LXC on Proxmox, Node 22.19
• Gateway bind: `loopback`, `tailscale.mode=serve`, port 18789, TLS via Tailscale MagicDNS (Let's Encrypt)
• Android: Samsung SM-S928B, Android 16 (SDK 36), Play Store app v2026.4.5 (beta channel also at this version)
• Network: phone in same tailnet as gateway, MagicDNS resolves, TLS handshake succeeds — failure is at the OpenClaw WS protocol-version negotiation stage

Workaround

Pinning the gateway to `npm i -g [email protected]` (last stable speaking protocol v3) restores pairing. Loses ~12 days of gateway changes and forecloses Android Talk Mode realtime.

Related

• #29552 (Version mismatch)
• #49291 (cron run: websocket handshake fails — protocol mismatch + missing device auth)
• #83130 (changelog entry advertising Android Talk Mode realtime)

Asks

1. Is a Play Store / beta release of the Android app with protocol v4 in progress?
2. Could gateway releases that advertise new Android features in the stable changelog gate on a published min Android client version, to avoid this incoherence?
3. Is there a closed/internal testing track contributors can opt into?

Happy to test pre-release Android builds.