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openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Signal: incoming emoji reactions arrive as <media:unknown> [1 participants]

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openclaw/openclaw#53700•Fetched 2026-04-08 01:24:38
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When a Signal user reacts to a message with an emoji (e.g. 👍), it is delivered to the agent as <media:unknown> rather than a structured reaction event.

Root Cause

When a Signal user reacts to a message with an emoji (e.g. 👍), it is delivered to the agent as <media:unknown> rather than a structured reaction event.

Code Example

{
  "type": "reaction",
  "emoji": "👍",
  "targetMessageId": "...",
  "sender": "+1234567890"
}
RAW_BUFFERClick to expand / collapse

Description

When a Signal user reacts to a message with an emoji (e.g. 👍), it is delivered to the agent as <media:unknown> rather than a structured reaction event.

Expected Behavior

Incoming reactions should be parsed into a structured event, e.g.:

{
  "type": "reaction",
  "emoji": "👍",
  "targetMessageId": "...",
  "sender": "+1234567890"
}

This would allow the agent to interpret and respond to reactions naturally.

Current Behavior

Reactions come through as <media:unknown>, which is indistinguishable from other unsupported media types. The agent has no way to know a reaction was sent or what emoji was used.

Environment

  • Channel: Signal (signal-cli)
  • OpenClaw version: 2026.2.22-2

extent analysis

Fix Plan

To fix the issue of Signal reactions being delivered as <media:unknown>, we need to update the reaction parsing logic.

Steps:

  • Update the signal-cli configuration to support reaction events
  • Modify the OpenClaw code to parse reaction events from Signal

Example Code:

# Parse reaction events from Signal
def parse_reaction_event(message):
    if message.startswith("<media:unknown>"):
        # Attempt to parse reaction event
        reaction_match = re.search(r"<media:unknown>(.*)</media:unknown>", message)
        if reaction_match:
            emoji = reaction_match.group(1)
            # Create structured reaction event
            reaction_event = {
                "type": "reaction",
                "emoji": emoji,
                "targetMessageId": "...",
                "sender": "+1234567890"
            }
            return reaction_event
    return None

Verification

To verify the fix, send a reaction from Signal and check if the agent receives a structured reaction event.

Extra Tips

  • Ensure the signal-cli version supports reaction events
  • Test the fix with different emojis and reaction scenarios to ensure compatibility.

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