Description

After a gateway restart (via /restart in Telegram or openclaw gateway restart), Telegram outbound delivery stops working. Messages are generated successfully and appear in webchat, but are not delivered to Telegram. The gateway logs show repeated errors:

Error: Outbound not configured for channel: telegram

The announce queue retries with exponential backoff (up to 60s intervals), but never recovers — even though openclaw status reports Telegram as ON / OK.

Reproduction Steps

1. Have a working Telegram integration (bot token configured, messages flowing normally)
2. Run /restart from Telegram (or openclaw gateway restart)
3. Trigger a subagent task that produces an announce/completion
4. The announce result appears in webchat but never arrives in Telegram
5. Sending a new message FROM Telegram works fine — responses come back
6. Only proactive/announce messages fail

Observed Behavior

• 22 occurrences of Outbound not configured for channel: telegram in a single session
• Error window: ~40 minutes (22:15 - 22:53 UTC on 2026-03-25)
• Subagent completion announces specifically affected:

  Subagent completion direct announce failed for run <run-id>: Error: Outbound not configured for channel: telegram
  

• openclaw status shows Telegram as ON / OK during the entire error window
• Inbound messages (user → bot) work fine; only outbound (bot → user) fails

Expected Behavior

After a gateway restart, Telegram outbound should be re-registered automatically. Announce/completion messages should be delivered to Telegram just like they were before the restart.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.3.24 (cff6dc9)
• OS: macOS 26.3.1 (arm64)
• Node: v25.5.0
• Gateway: local, ws://127.0.0.1:18789
• Telegram config: enabled: true, dmPolicy: "pairing", streaming: "partial"
• Gateway auth: token mode

Config (sanitized)

{
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "enabled": true,
      "dmPolicy": "pairing",
      "botToken": "<REDACTED>",
      "groupPolicy": "allowlist",
      "streaming": "partial"
    }
  },
  "plugins": {
    "allow": ["telegram"],
    "entries": {
      "telegram": { "enabled": true }
    }
  }
}

Workaround

Sending any inbound message from Telegram seems to re-register the outbound, allowing subsequent proactive messages to flow again. But announces generated while outbound was unregistered are lost after max retries.