What causes "Not connected to gateway" in slopus/happy?

Wait for the socket's connected event/status before issuing requests

Not connected to gateway

Error message

Not connected to gateway

What it means

OpenClawSocket.request() sends a JSON-RPC-style request frame over the gateway WebSocket. It validates that the WebSocket exists and status === 'connected' before generating a request ID; otherwise the request could never receive a response. Called by sendMessage and abortRun, so both fail with this error when the transport is down.

Source

Thrown at packages/happy-cli/src/openclaw/OpenClawSocket.ts:154

      this.pairingRequestId = null;
      this.doConnect();
    }
  }

  onStatusChange(handler: OpenClawStatusHandler): () => void {
    this.statusListeners.add(handler);
    handler(this.status, undefined, { pairingRequestId: this.pairingRequestId ?? undefined });
    return () => this.statusListeners.delete(handler);
  }

  onEvent(handler: OpenClawEventHandler): () => void {
    this.eventListeners.add(handler);
    return () => this.eventListeners.delete(handler);
  }

  async request<T = unknown>(method: string, params?: unknown, timeoutMs = 15000): Promise<T> {
    if (!this.ws || this.status !== 'connected') {
      throw new Error('Not connected to gateway');
    }

    const id = randomUUID();
    const frame = { type: 'req', id, method, params };

    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      const timeout = setTimeout(() => {
        this.pending.delete(id);
        reject(new Error(`Request timeout: ${method}`));
      }, timeoutMs);

      this.pending.set(id, {
        resolve: (value) => {
          clearTimeout(timeout);
          resolve(value as T);
        },
        reject: (error) => {
          clearTimeout(timeout);

View on GitHub (pinned to b824cd0a46)

Solutions

Wait for the socket's connected event/status before issuing requests
Reconnect the socket and retry the request once connection is re-established
Check gateway availability and logs; the request timeout (15s default) may indicate the connection died earlier

Example fix

// before
await socket.sendMessage(msg);
// after
if (socket.status !== 'connected') {
  await socket.connect(gatewayConfig);
}
await socket.sendMessage(msg);

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if (!socket.isConnected()) {
  await socket.connect(gatewayConfig);
}

Type guard

const canRequest = (s: OpenClawSocket): boolean => s.ws !== null && s.status === 'connected';

Try / catch

try {
  return await socket.request<T>(method, params);
} catch (err) {
  if (err.message === 'Not connected to gateway') {
    await socket.connect(gatewayConfig);
    return await socket.request<T>(method, params);
  }
  throw err;
}

Prevention

Await the socket 'connected' status before issuing any request
Add a reconnect-with-backoff wrapper around request/sendMessage/abortRun
Treat the 15s request timeout as a signal the connection may have died

When it happens

Trigger: Calling request() (directly or via sendMessage/abortRun) when this.ws is null/undefined or this.status !== 'connected' — before connection completes, after a disconnect, or during a reconnect window.

Common situations: Aborting a run after the gateway connection dropped; sending a message concurrently with a reconnect; timeout of the initial connect causing later calls to run against a closed socket.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of slopus/happy@b824cd0a46 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/34473b3ec6597ae0. Report an issue: GitHub.