openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix memory_search falls back because qmd managed collection memory-alt-main is missing and repair does not recreate it [2 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

On OpenClaw 2026.3.31, memory_search attempts to query qmd with a managed collection named memory-alt-main, but that collection does not exist. The repair path logs that it is repairing missing managed collections and retrying once, but the collection still is not created/rebound successfully. Search then falls back to the builtin index and still returns results.

Environment

• OpenClaw: 2026.3.31 (213a704)
• OS: macOS arm64
• Session/agent context: main agent
• Memory status from openclaw status --deep:
  • Memory | 61 files · 61 chunks · sources memory · plugin memory-core · vector ready

Symptoms

Warnings observed:

qmd search failed because a managed collection is missing; repairing collections and retrying once
qmd collection add skipped for memory-alt-main: qmd collection add /Users/geo/.openclaw/workspace --name memory-alt-main --glob memory.md failed (code 1): A collection already exists for this path and pattern:
 Name: memory-root-main (qmd://memory-root-main/)
 Pattern: **/*.md

Use 'qmd update' to re-index it, or remove it first with 'qmd collection remove memory-root-main'

qmd search failed: Error: qmd search <query> --json -n 5 -c memory-alt-main failed (code 1): Collection not found: memory-alt-main
qmd memory failed; switching to builtin index: qmd search <query> --json -n 5 -c memory-alt-main failed (code 1): Collection not found: memory-alt-main

A later memory_search tool call also reported fallback details consistent with this:

fallback.from: qmd
reason: qmd search IBKR preferences long-term memory --json -n 5 -c memory-alt-main failed (code 1): Collection not found: memory-alt-main

What I checked

qmd collection list showed user-visible collections that did not match the managed collection name OpenClaw was searching for:

Collections (2):

daily-logs (qmd://daily-logs/)
 Pattern: **/*.md
 Files: 12
 Updated: 43m ago

workspace (qmd://workspace/)
 Pattern: *.md
 Files: 8
 Updated: 3d ago

After removing those collections manually:

qmd collection remove daily-logs
qmd collection remove workspace

OpenClaw still did not recreate a working memory-alt-main collection, and subsequent memory searches still failed against -c memory-alt-main and fell back to builtin memory.

Also, grepping the built dist for a literal memory-alt-main string returned nothing, which suggests the managed collection name is generated dynamically rather than hardcoded.

Expected behavior

If qmd-backed memory expects a managed collection such as memory-alt-main, then one of these should happen:

1. OpenClaw should create/rebind that collection successfully during initialization or repair, or
2. the repair path should migrate older/unexpected collection names robustly, or
3. qmd search should target the actually managed collection name instead of a missing derived name.

Actual behavior

• qmd search targets memory-alt-main
• collection is missing
• repair path logs that it is repairing
• collection still remains missing
• memory falls back to builtin index

Possible root cause

It looks like a managed-collection naming mismatch during/after a migration to scoped collection names (for example <base>-<agentId>), where the repair flow only understands legacy names of the form <base> and does not recover from other pre-existing collection names or conflicting bindings. Another possibility is that repair runs in a different qmd config/env context than the visible CLI state, so creation/rebinding is not taking effect as intended.

Repro sketch

1. Start on OpenClaw 2026.3.31
2. Have qmd enabled for memory
3. Trigger memory_search
4. Observe qmd search targeting -c memory-alt-main
5. Observe repair warning and fallback to builtin index
6. qmd collection list does not show memory-alt-main

Impact

Memory functionality still works due to builtin fallback, but qmd-backed search appears unusable/noisy in this state and emits confusing warnings.