openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug]: 2026.5.27 regression — Control UI messages and steer ignored during active long-run sessions

Bug Description

After upgrading from 2026.5.18 to 2026.5.27 stable, user messages sent via the Control UI dashboard during an active long-run agent session are completely ignored. The /steer command also has no effect. Messages appear in the chat but the agent does not acknowledge or process them.

This was working on 2026.5.18 — messages sent during active turns would reach the agent. After upgrading to 2026.5.27, all messages queue silently and the agent continues its current work without interruption.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start a long-run autonomous session (agent actively working with subagents, model calls in progress)
2. Send a message via the Control UI dashboard while the agent is mid-turn
3. Try /steer command to redirect the agent
4. Observe: messages appear in chat but agent does not respond or acknowledge them

Expected Behavior

Messages sent during an active turn should either:

• Be steered into the active run (as they were on 2026.5.18)
• Or at minimum, be processed at the next tool boundary

Actual Behavior

Messages pile up in a queue (q=3 visible in gateway liveness logs) and are never processed until the current turn fully completes. The /steer command is also ineffective.

Gateway logs show:

liveness warning: ... active=1 waiting=0 queued=2 ...
work=[active=agent:main:dashboard:<uuid>(processing/model_call,q=3,age=179s last=model_call:stream_progress)
queued=agent:main:dashboard:<uuid>(processing/model_call,q=3,age=179s last=model_call:stream_progress)]

Suspected Cause

The 2026.5.27 change "queue prompts submitted while an agent is busy" (#86722) appears to have changed the behavior from steering/injecting messages into the active run to unconditionally queuing them. This is a regression for long-run autonomous sessions where mid-turn steering is critical for operator control.

Related existing issues:

• #48003 — Steer mode does not inject messages mid-turn for main sessions
• #83871 — Surface whether a busy message was steered or queued

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.5.27 stable
• Previous working version: 2026.5.18 stable
• OS: macOS 26.3.1 (arm64), Node 22.22.2
• Channel: Control UI (dashboard)
• Session type: Long-run autonomous with subagents
• Primary model: zai/glm-5.1
• Fallback model: codex/gpt-5.5