Issue Station
Sign In
Tools hereToolbox

openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix 5.22: imsg rpc watch.subscribe timeout on every gateway start — iMessage channel dead

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…

Error Message

imessage: watch.subscribe startup failed (attempt 1/3): Error: imsg rpc timeout (watch.subscribe) [default] channel exited without an error [default] auto-restart attempt 1/10 in 5s

Code Example

imessage: watch.subscribe startup failed (attempt 1/3): Error: imsg rpc timeout (watch.subscribe)
[default] channel exited without an error
[default] auto-restart attempt 1/10 in 5s

---

echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"watch.subscribe","params":{},"id":1}' | imsg rpc
{"id":1,"result":{"subscription":1},"jsonrpc":"2.0"}

---

imsg rpc not ready after 13281ms (Error: imsg rpc timeout (chats.list))
RAW_BUFFERClick to expand / collapse

Environment

  • OpenClaw: 2026.5.22 (a374c3a)
  • imsg: 0.9.0 (also reproduced on 0.8.2)
  • macOS: Tahoe (26), M4 MacBook Air, 24GB RAM
  • iMessage channel: cliPath /opt/homebrew/bin/imsg

Problem

After upgrading to 5.22, the gateway cannot connect to the imsg RPC watch.subscribe endpoint. Every startup attempt fails:

imessage: watch.subscribe startup failed (attempt 1/3): Error: imsg rpc timeout (watch.subscribe)
[default] channel exited without an error
[default] auto-restart attempt 1/10 in 5s

The iMessage channel never initializes. No incoming messages are received. Outbound works via openclaw message send.

Key finding

imsg rpc works perfectly from the command line:

echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"watch.subscribe","params":{},"id":1}' | imsg rpc
{"id":1,"result":{"subscription":1},"jsonrpc":"2.0"}

chats.list also works manually but times out from the gateway:

imsg rpc not ready after 13281ms (Error: imsg rpc timeout (chats.list))

What we tried

  • Rebooted Mac entirely
  • Upgraded imsg from 0.8.2 to 0.9.0
  • Changed cliPath to libexec binary directly
  • Killed all imsg processes before restart
  • pkill + gateway restart multiple times
  • openclaw doctor --fix (clean)
  • Set OPENCLAW_DISABLE_BONJOUR=1 (per issue #65393)
  • Verified Full Disk Access for imsg

Possibly related

  • GitHub issue #65393 (Bonjour advertiser failure cascades into iMessage teardown)
  • Was working on 5.22 for several hours before breaking
  • Gateway was restarted ~8 times during debugging session which may have contributed

Impact

iMessage is the primary channel for this fleet (14 agents). Complete loss of inbound messaging.

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…

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 5.22: imsg rpc watch.subscribe timeout on every gateway start — iMessage channel dead