openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix control-ui sessions.list polling saturates gateway with many conversations [1 participants]

openclaw2026-03-30 22:53:51

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openclaw/openclaw#57974•Fetched 2026-04-08 01:55:25

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Author

Veda-openclaw

Participants

Veda-openclaw

Root Cause

Two open tabs (overview + chat) produce ~24 calls/minute, keeping the gateway at 100% CPU permanently. This blocks other operations — agent spawns time out at 10 seconds because the gateway cannot service them between sessions.list responses.

Code Example

sessions.list 4799ms conn=96c962a9…a738
sessions.list 4783ms conn=96c962a9…a738
sessions.list 4786ms conn=e6d28eb7…db0c
sessions.list 4780ms conn=96c962a9…a738
sessions.list 4765ms conn=e6d28eb7…db0c

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Bug

Version: v2026.3.28

Problem

The openclaw-control-ui webchat client polls sessions.list every ~5-7 seconds per connected tab. With a large LCM database (~5,000 conversations, 163K messages), each sessions.list call takes ~4.8 seconds to resolve.

Observed Impact

Gateway pegged at 100% CPU, 3.8 GB RSS
sessions.spawn calls timeout (10s) — unable to run concurrent sub-agents
Previously could run 10 parallel agents; now struggles with 2
Closing both webchat tabs immediately dropped CPU to ~20%

Gateway log evidence

sessions.list 4799ms conn=96c962a9…a738
sessions.list 4783ms conn=96c962a9…a738
sessions.list 4786ms conn=e6d28eb7…db0c
sessions.list 4780ms conn=96c962a9…a738
sessions.list 4765ms conn=e6d28eb7…db0c

Two connections (96c962a9 = overview tab, e6d28eb7 = chat tab), both identified as openclaw-control-ui webchat v2026.3.28.

Root Causes

No pagination/caching on sessions.list — appears to do a full scan of all conversations every call. 4.8s is too slow regardless of polling frequency.
Aggressive polling interval — ~5s per tab with no backoff, no document.hidden check, no debouncing across multiple tabs.

Suggested Fixes

Server-side:

Cache sessions.list results (TTL 10-30s) — session list changes rarely
Add pagination support (offset/limit)
Consider a lightweight /sessions/summary endpoint that returns counts + last-active without full enumeration

Client-side:

Increase polling interval to 15-30s (sessions change slowly)
Pause polling when tab is not visible (document.visibilitychange)
Deduplicate across tabs (SharedWorker, BroadcastChannel, or localStorage lock)
Use exponential backoff if response time exceeds threshold

Environment

macOS (arm64), Node v22.22.1
LCM DB: 1.0 GB, 5,082 conversations, 163,059 messages, 1,204 depth-0 summaries
Gateway bound to loopback (127.0.0.1:18789)

extent analysis

Fix Plan

To address the issue, we will implement the following fixes:

Server-side:

Cache sessions.list results: Implement a caching mechanism with a TTL of 10-30 seconds.
Add pagination support: Introduce offset and limit parameters to the sessions.list endpoint.
Create a lightweight /sessions/summary endpoint: Return counts and last-active information without full enumeration.

Client-side:

Increase polling interval: Update the polling interval to 15-30 seconds.
Pause polling when tab is not visible: Use the document.visibilitychange event to pause polling.
Deduplicate across tabs: Utilize a SharedWorker, BroadcastChannel, or localStorage lock to deduplicate requests.
Implement exponential backoff: Increase the polling interval if the response time exceeds a threshold.

Example Code

Server-side (Node.js)

const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const cache = require('memory-cache');

// Cache sessions.list results for 10 seconds
app.get('/sessions.list', (req, res) => {
  const cachedResult = cache.get('sessionsList');
  if (cachedResult) {
    return res.json(cachedResult);
  }

  // Fetch sessions list from database
  const sessions = fetchSessionsFromDatabase();
  cache.put('sessionsList', sessions, 10000); // 10 seconds
  res.json(sessions);
});

// Add pagination support
app.get('/sessions.list', (req, res) => {
  const offset = req.query.offset;
  const limit = req.query.limit;
  const sessions = fetchSessionsFromDatabase(offset, limit);
  res.json(sessions);
});

// Create a lightweight /sessions/summary endpoint
app.get('/sessions/summary', (req, res) => {
  const summary = fetchSummaryFromDatabase();
  res.json(summary);
});

Client-side (JavaScript)

// Increase polling interval to 15 seconds
const pollingInterval = 15000;

// Pause polling when tab is not visible
document.addEventListener('visibilitychange', () => {
  if (document.visibilityState === 'hidden') {
    // Pause polling
  } else {
    // Resume polling
  }
});

// Deduplicate across tabs using localStorage
const storage = window.localStorage;
const lockKey = 'sessionsListLock';

// Implement exponential backoff
let backoffInterval = pollingInterval;
function pollSessionsList() {
  fetch('/sessions.list')
    .then((response) => {
      if (response.ok) {
        backoffInterval = pollingInterval;
      } else {
        backoffInterval *= 2;
      }
    })
    .catch((error) => {
      backoffInterval *= 2;
    });
  setTimeout(pollSessionsList, backoffInterval);
}

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openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix control-ui sessions.list polling saturates gateway with many conversations [1 participants]

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Root Cause

Code Example

Bug

Problem

Observed Impact

Gateway log evidence

Root Causes

Suggested Fixes

Environment

extent analysis

Fix Plan

Example Code

Server-side (Node.js)

Client-side (JavaScript)

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openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix control-ui sessions.list polling saturates gateway with many conversations [1 participants]

Recommended Tools

GitHub issue graph ai analysis

Root Cause

Code Example

Bug

Problem

Observed Impact

Gateway log evidence

Root Causes

Suggested Fixes

Environment

extent analysis

Fix Plan

Example Code

Server-side (Node.js)

Client-side (JavaScript)

Verification

Still need to ship something?

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