openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix WhatsApp: reply text silently dropped when response includes tool calls (2026.5.7) [1 comments, 2 participants]

Bug: WhatsApp auto-reply text silently dropped when response includes tool calls

Version: OpenClaw 2026.5.7 (eeef486)
Platform: macOS Darwin 25.3.0 (arm64), Node v25.8.1
Channel: WhatsApp (Baileys)

Description

In a WhatsApp direct chat session, when the Claude agent's response includes both reply text AND tool calls (e.g., file writes via Write tool, Read tool), the reply text is intermittently not delivered to the WhatsApp recipient. The tool calls execute successfully, but the user-facing text message is silently dropped — no error in logs.

Observed behavior

• Agent responds with text + tool calls (e.g., confirming an action + writing to a session-handoff file)
• Tool calls execute normally
• The reply text never arrives on WhatsApp
• No auto-reply sent (text) log entry appears for the dropped message
• No error or warning logged

Expected behavior

Reply text should always be delivered to WhatsApp regardless of whether the response also includes tool calls.

Reproduction pattern

1. User sends a message on WhatsApp
2. Agent reads files, does tool calls, and writes reply text in the same turn
3. Text is intermittently dropped — some turns work, some don't

Log evidence

• Date: 2026-05-13 IST
• Multiple messages confirmed dropped by the user (no WhatsApp delivery) despite the agent generating reply text
• Successfully delivered messages all show auto-reply sent (text) with deliverWebReply in monitor-C5_C_RGJ.js:2087
• Dropped messages have NO corresponding delivery log entry — the text was generated by the model but never reached the deliverReply path

Impact

Critical — makes WhatsApp channel unreliable. User reports multiple missed replies in a single session, requiring repeated re-prompting.

Workaround

Keeping replies shorter and avoiding mixing tool calls with reply text in the same turn seems to reduce frequency but doesn't eliminate it.