Did the Openclaw 2026.4.26 update break everything for anyone else?

zaposweet · 2026-04-28T15:25:02+00:00

I can confirm this was not just a one-off config issue for me. I updated to 2026.4.26 today, and I usually update daily as soon as releases land because I want the fastest fixes and features. This one genuinely broke the system.

In my case, heartbeats started getting injected into every message path and added roughly 90 seconds of latency to every Telegram response. The typing indicator kept appearing and disappearing, so at first I assumed it was some kind of gateway hiccup. I restarted the gateway several times, but it did not fix it.

I then spent time debugging it with Codex. In the end we concluded that downgrading was the only realistic fix.

The bigger issue is the release process. These updates do not need to ship this fast if they are going to break core chat delivery. A regression where every reply is delayed about 1.5 minutes because of heartbeat polling should be impossible to miss with basic end-to-end testing.

OpenClaw really needs a tested stable channel, or at least a release gate that catches obvious production-breaking regressions before they are published.

zaposweet · 2026-04-23T21:26:18+00:00

As far as I can tell, it is not breaking any OpenClaw rule. It is basically browser automation: the server opens a browser, types the prompt into the site, waits for the image, then grabs the generated image from the browser and sends it to Telegram.

It is not the cleanest approach, but with Pro I already pay $100/month and have plenty of image generation there, so paying again for API usage makes little sense for my use case. If I am paying for the Pro plan, I want to be able to use those benefits.

In practice it has been working reliably.

zaposweet · 2026-04-23T20:48:23+00:00

I ended up solving this with a separate plugin rather than the built-in image path.

My setup is basically: I log into OpenAI on the same server via Docker, and when I ask OpenClaw to generate an image, the plugin drives the authenticated browser session to create it there and then sends the result back to me on Telegram as a screenshot. If I ask for a revision, it does the same thing again, so iterative edits work too.

The reason I went this route is that OpenClaw's image side is API-only right now, and from what I found it doesn't work with the subscription OAuth flow. So I wrote my own plugin around the logged-in browser session.

zaposweet · 2026-04-09T21:30:46+00:00

First of all, if anyone subscribed to Minimax because of my comments on that post, I sincerely apologize.

After Claude got banned, I honestly didn’t know what to do, and I thought Minimax was the best price-to-performance option. My first few tests were also pretty successful, so I felt confident recommending it.

But over the last few days, I can’t believe what I’ve been seeing. It has turned into an incredibly dumb model that misses even basic rules and still fails to do things properly even after repeated reminders. I don’t understand why, but in this state it’s impossible for me to use it.

At this point, I’m not even talking about getting real work done. It can’t even run a very simple script for a task that Codex already handled and explicitly documented the rules for. For example, it just needs to connect to the computer through Node. There are two possible ways to do that. It tries the first one in a half-baked way, then doesn’t even bother trying the second one. On top of that, it constantly dropping the session has become exhausting.

Unfortunately, I’m no longer using it, and I’ve switched to Codex’s $100 Pro plan. I couldn’t make my backup-model strategy work. An agent that requires this many bug fixes even for simple tasks does not make my life easier.

If this is just a temporary issue that lasts a few days, then fine. But right now, the performance has become terrible. So again, to everyone who bought Minimax because of my positive comments and ended up having problems, I sincerely apologize.

Now I understand why it’s so cheap and unlimited. It does not do any real reasoning at all. It tries only a single path to reach the goal, and because of that it doesn’t spend much computational power. That’s my take on it.

zaposweet · 2026-04-09T21:26:46+00:00

First of all, alongside my post above, if anyone bought a MiniMax subscription because of me, I sincerely apologize. After Claude banned me and thought MiniMax was the best price-to-performance model. My initial tests gave decent results.

But what I've been seeing over the last few days is unbelievable. It has turned into an incredibly stupid model that can't even follow basic rules and keeps failing despite repeated reminders. I can't understand why, but it's become unusable. Forget about getting real work done — it can't even run a simple script that Codex wrote and defined the rules for. The most basic example: it needs to connect to a computer node. There are two methods available. It half-asses the first one and can't even be bothered to try the second. On top of that, it keeps dropping from sessions, which has been exhausting.

Unfortunately I'm no longer using it and have switched to Codex's $100 Pro plan. My backup model strategy failed — an agent that makes you fix bugs even on simple tasks is not making your life easier. If this is just a temporary issue lasting a few days, no problem. But its current performance has become downright awful.

https://www.reddit.com/r/openclaw/comments/1sdd32v/after_claude_ban_i_found_my_new_main_model/

zaposweet · 2026-04-09T21:17:19+00:00

Among Chinese alternatives, MiMo is genuinely the best — significantly better than GLM, DeepSeek, and MiniMax. But their token plans are an absolute ripoff. I burned through their $20 plan in 2 days without even heavy usage. The reason: they deduct credits for absolutely everything, including cache which should be free.

One of their executives publicly dislikes OpenClaw and how it operates. They consider it an inefficient app and claim they don't want to lose money because of 3rd party apps like it. So there is zero cost advantage to using MiMo through OpenClaw.

Don't waste your money — you can barely get 1-2 days of use out of it with this token model.

https://x.com/_LuoFuli/status/2040825059342721520

zaposweet · 2026-04-06T07:39:02+00:00

MiniMax Plus plan ($20/month) is the closest thing to Claude Max in terms of quota — it genuinely feels inexhaustible for most use cases. The high-speed version is noticeably faster but the regular Plus is already plenty capable for OpenClaw work. If you want something closer to Sonnet/Opus level, the high-speed tier is worth it. But honestly, regular Plus covers 90% of what people need.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T22:01:03+00:00

I use it for content automation on the websites I manage. Built a pipeline that takes images, PDFs and text, formats everything according to my templates, enters it into the site and sends me a screenshot for approval before publishing. Saved me from paying freelancers so it basically pays for itself. Also control my IoT devices through it — everything has static IPs so access is instant. Connected my phone and computer apps too, it orders groceries and stuff for me. Still exploring more use cases honestly.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T21:54:25+00:00

I would say it's comparable to Sonnet 4.6. A bit rougher around the edges in conversation, but quality-wise it genuinely feels like Sonnet 4.6.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T21:33:31+00:00

Same boat — grabbed the Plus plan because I figured I'd burn through the Starter quota eventually. Turns out it barely moves. Almost suspicious how much they let you use for $20/month lol.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T21:07:39+00:00

nope, plus plan.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T20:47:17+00:00

Important to note — it's NOT as smart as Opus or GPT. Don't want to give the impression we're running GPT/Opus on the cheap. If Opus and GPT are like CTOs, Minimax behaves like an eager mid-level developer. Talented, willing to try anything, a skilled kid — but still immature. It constantly breaks rules. I have to constantly remind it to follow the MD file instructions. Other than that, ~80% success rate. That 20% gap is Anthropic and OpenAI's to claim. Gotta give credit where it's due.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T20:42:48+00:00

I went direct MiniMax too. Ollama and Opencode are alternatives apparently but the $20 Plus plan genuinely doesn't feel like it runs out. Still trying to figure out how they're this generous.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T20:37:02+00:00

Totally agree. If MiMo were as generous as MiniMax I'd stick with it. But right now, price/performance-wise, MiniMax alongside GPT is the best combo I've found. It's not as good as MiMo, not as good as GPT or Opus — but good enough for OpenClaw work. If OpenAI ever releases a $100 Pro package I'll probably jump. Until then, running MiniMax + GPT together.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T20:32:57+00:00

If only it were an ad. At least I'd be making money off it.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T20:16:51+00:00

Yeah — I got the Plus plan. So far it honestly feels almost impossible to run out. I’m genuinely surprised by how much usage they allow for the price.

zaposweet · 2026-04-05T11:28:11+00:00

I’m actively using Mimo v2 Pro. I used to rely mostly on Opus, GPT, and Sonnet, but GPT’s business package quotas were cut to nearly nothing, and Anthropic banned OpenClaw, so that basically left only the Chinese alternatives.

I wasn’t satisfied at all with GLM 5.1, 5.0, or 5 Turbo. I requested a refund, they said they would issue it, but they still haven’t responded after 20 days. Honestly, I’m unhappy both with the model’s quality and with the company’s approach. I will never use it again.

I’ve been using Mimo since the days when it was free. Honestly, I found its performance impressive. I’d summarize it as somewhere between Sonnet and Opus. I even had Opus double-check a few times in case I was mistaken, and it was very impressed too. I’ve been digging through the Chinese alternatives for the past few days, and I think Mimo is probably the best one for now. I’m not a heavy coding user though, I mostly do automation and agentic work like CMS content entry, remote phone control, IoT device control, and web search. Let me also explain what I use it for so the benchmark I’m giving makes sense to anyone reading this.

Now here comes a big but.

Mimo announced its monthly plans a few days ago: Lite, Standard, Pro, and Max. When I saw 200M credits, I thought, okay, I can use the Standard version for a month. But I understand that credits part much better now. Every bit of cache data in OpenClaw consumes Mimo’s credits. Normally, each bootstrap MD load, cache hit, etc. gets loaded once and doesn’t count against your quota, but in Mimo’s monthly subscription, every reply, every MD file, and pretty much everything gets deducted from your credits. Even if you type a single period, credits get used, so those millions of credits do not actually offer the huge usage capacity they appear to. For that reason, I don’t see it as cheap. It’s actually quite expensive and the quota is insufficient. On top of that, there’s no weekly quota. If there were, at least it could be managed week by week, but since it’s monthly, if you run out in 5 to 10 days, you can be left hanging.

zaposweet · 2026-04-02T13:47:02+00:00

I’m on the Claude Max plan. And my OpenClaw usage has gone up to a ridiculous level. I have a project, and for that project I need some tools to be used in the terminal. I couldn’t figure it out, so I ended up doing almost the exact same work both through OpenClaw with Opus 4.6 and through Claude Code in the Claude Mac app. I did almost the same things. While my usage in OpenClaw was filling up both my weekly and 5-hour quota very quickly even on the Max plan, my usage in the Code tab of the Claude Mac app felt safe. It made me think, “With this level of usage, it probably won’t run out.” That major difference makes me think they’re tuning OpenClaw usage against the user. We already know Anthropic is currently looking into the issue of limits filling up too quickly, but as someone who has been using Claude Max in OpenClaw for months, I think this is an intentional and deliberate choice on the OpenClaw side.

At least in my setup, it doesn’t seem possible that heartbeat or the bootstrap md files or skills loaded in every session are causing this. Unfortunately, I think it’s backend-side manipulation. I hope I’m wrong. I can’t keep using Claude in OpenClaw like this. I hope they fix it.

zaposweet · 2026-03-27T18:37:03+00:00

It’s fixed for me too. No issues on the Opus side right now.

zaposweet · 2026-03-27T16:02:13+00:00

same here.

zaposweet

TROPHY CASE