Summary

Enabling Voice Awake / Voice Wake on macOS can crash the OpenClaw app when no audio input (microphone) device is available / default input device is missing.

Environment

• OpenClaw macOS app: 2026.2.19 (build 12767)
• macOS: 26.3 (25D125)
• Hardware: Mac mini (Apple Silicon)

Steps to Reproduce

1. Ensure the system has no active recording input device (no microphone connected; default input device effectively missing).
2. Launch OpenClaw.
3. Open/enable Voice Awake.

Expected Behavior

App should handle the missing input device gracefully (disable Voice Awake, show an error, or prompt the user).

Actual Behavior

App aborts with an uncaught exception from AVFAudio when installing an audio tap.

Evidence / Logs

Unified log right before the crash:

AVAEUtility.mm:168   Error: input hw format invalid
*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'com.apple.coreaudio.avfaudio', reason: 'Failed to create tap due to format mismatch, <AVAudioFormat ... 2 ch, 44100 Hz, Float32, deinterleaved>'
... AVAudioNode installTapOnBus ...
... VoiceWakeRuntime.start(with:) ...

Crash reports generated:

• ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/OpenClaw-2026-02-20-070448.ips
• ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/OpenClaw-2026-02-20-070645.ips

Workaround

• Connect a microphone / set a valid default input device.
• Or disable voice wake (e.g. defaults write bot.molt.mac openclaw.swabbleEnabled -bool false).