openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix WhatsApp pairing fails: `qrcode` npm package missing from bundled runtime-deps in 2026.4.29 [1 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

openclaw configure --section channels (and the Control UI dashboard) cannot complete WhatsApp pairing on a fresh install of 2026.4.29. The pairing flow successfully connects to WhatsApp's CDN and receives QR refresh tokens (6 rotations, then status=408 QR refs attempts ended), but the QR is never rendered.

Root cause

dist/qr-terminal-DI6mj_pL.js does import("qrcode") (bare specifier), but the qrcode npm package is not present in node_modules at either the npm install (~/.nvm/.../node_modules/openclaw/node_modules/) or the bundled runtime-deps (~/.openclaw/plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-2026.4.29-*/node_modules/).

Dashboard error message:

Failed to render the WhatsApp QR: Cannot find package 'qrcode' imported from
.../dist/qr-terminal-DI6mj_pL.js
Did you mean to import "qrcode/lib/index.js"?

The shim is also present (and equally broken) in 2026.4.27 and 2026.4.26 runtime-deps, so this isn't a regression in 2026.4.29 — it appears to have been a long-standing miss in the bundled deps that no fresh-pair tester has hit until now.

Reproduction

1. Fresh npm install -g [email protected]
2. Start gateway, run openclaw configure --section channels
3. Walk through prompts, select WhatsApp, answer Yes at "Link WhatsApp now (QR)?"
4. "Scan this QR" header prints 6 times with no QR rendered, then status=408

Suggested fix

Add qrcode to the bundled runtime-deps manifest (it's only ~50KB), or replace the dynamic import("qrcode") with qrcode-terminal which is already in the deps and exposes a terminal-rendering API.

Workaround for users on 2026.4.29

Patch ~/.nvm/.../node_modules/openclaw/dist/qr-terminal-DI6mj_pL.js to import qrcode from a manually-installed location:

qrCodeRuntimePromise = import("file:///tmp/qr-helper/node_modules/qrcode/lib/index.js")
  .then((mod) => mod.default ?? mod);

After npm install qrcode --prefix /tmp/qr-helper. (The runtime-deps copy of the shim gets wiped by openclaw's auto-sync, so the npm install location is the durable patch site.)