Bug type

Behavior bug (incorrect output/state without crash)

Beta release blocker

No

Summary

On v2026.4.25 stable, memory-core narrative generation reliably times out for all three dreaming phases (light, rem, deep) regardless of gateway warm-up state. This contradicts the resolution of #69487 ("First dreaming-narrative subagent run after gateway idle exceeds NARRATIVE_TIMEOUT_MS due to plugin-host cold-start", closed 2026-04-25 by @steipete with "Closing this as implemented after Codex review").

Key difference from #69487: this is not cold-start — failures persist 22 minutes into a warmed gateway and across consecutive triggers. Underlying dream output (memory.dream.completed events with lineCount > 0, reportPath written) is unaffected; only the narrative prose-summary step fails.

Steps to reproduce

1. Fresh install v2026.4.25 on Debian 11 (or restart existing v4.25 gateway)
2. Wait ≥20 min after gateway becomes ready (long enough that [Bug]: First dreaming-narrative subagent run after gateway idle exceeds NARRATIVE_TIMEOUT_MS due to plugin-host cold-start #69487's "first sweep" cold-start excuse does not apply)
3. Trigger dreaming via openclaw cron run <memoryDreamingPromotionJobId>
4. Observe gateway log: grep 'narrative generation ended with status=timeout' /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).log

Expected behavior

Per #69487 resolution, narrative generation completes for all phases on a warm gateway within NARRATIVE_TIMEOUT_MS.

Actual behavior

Two consecutive runs on the same gateway, both failed identically:

Run 1 — cold (gateway just restarted, 4 min uptime)

13:15:08.993  WARN  memory-core: narrative generation ended with status=timeout for light phase.
13:17:03.143  WARN  memory-core: narrative generation ended with status=timeout for rem phase.
13:17:03.151  WARN  memory-core: narrative generation ended with status=timeout for deep phase.

Run 2 — warm (22 min uptime)

13:31:46.973  WARN  memory-core: narrative generation ended with status=timeout for light phase.
13:31:46.982  WARN  memory-core: narrative generation ended with status=timeout for rem phase.
13:32:20.344  WARN  memory-core: narrative generation ended with status=timeout for deep phase.

In both runs, dreams themselves completed (events.jsonl entries with memory.dream.completed for all 3 phases, storageMode: "separate"). Only the narrative prose-summary failed.

Suspected root cause: NARRATIVE_TIMEOUT_MS = 15000 is too aggressive

dist/dreaming-narrative-BzMUwuXQ.js:42:

const NARRATIVE_TIMEOUT_MS = 15e3;  // 15 seconds

15 seconds is short for any LLM call (Claude/GPT model calls regularly take 5–15s end-to-end for non-trivial prompts; under any provider latency or queueing, this is tight). #69487's discussion mentioned a 60s timeout — either v4.25 reduced this, or the symptom in #69487 was a different NARRATIVE_TIMEOUT_MS than the one in dreaming-narrative-BzMUwuXQ.js.

Environment

Mitigation suggestion

Either (a) raise NARRATIVE_TIMEOUT_MS to 60s+ or expose it as a config knob, or (b) ensure narrative subagent reuses the gateway-bindable plugin runtime path described in #69487's closure note even on subsequent runs (not just the first).

Related

• [Bug]: First dreaming-narrative subagent run after gateway idle exceeds NARRATIVE_TIMEOUT_MS due to plugin-host cold-start #69487 (closed 2026-04-25 — fix appears insufficient)
• memory-core: dream narrative cleanup warns missing operator.admin after nightly dreaming #72554 (narrative cleanup — different issue, same subsystem)