Unauthorized errors in OpenClaw(Moltbot/Clawdbot) usually mean the runtime is presenting the wrong credential (or no credential) when trying to access a protected component, such as the gateway, control UI, a model provider, or a messaging connector. The fastest way to think about it is: OpenClaw(Moltbot/Clawdbot) has multiple auth layers, and “unauthorized” tells you one of them failed. Common examples include an expired OAuth session for a model provider, a missing gateway token when the dashboard tries to connect, a stale API key in your environment variables, or a mismatch between the token stored in a config file and a token set at the OS service level. The fix is usually not “reinstall everything”; it’s to identify which auth layer is failing and then refresh or remove the conflicting credential.
A practical troubleshooting approach is to start with OpenClaw(Moltbot/Clawdbot)’s built-in diagnostics and then work outward. First, run the CLI health/diagnostic commands (for example, the doctor-style checks) from the same environment where the service runs. This matters because headless services (systemd timers, launch agents, Docker containers) may see different environment variables than your interactive shell. On macOS in particular, a classic cause is an environment override set by the service manager: if you previously set gateway credentials with a system-level command, that value can override the config file and keep producing unauthorized errors even after you “fixed” the config. On Linux VPS deployments, the equivalent issue often shows up as a systemd unit that loads an old .env file or a different user home directory than the one you are editing. Also check the obvious: if you are using a remote gateway or dashboard, confirm you are connecting to the correct host/port and not an old endpoint with a rotated token.
Once you find the source, fix it in a way that prevents recurrence. If the error is model-provider auth, rotate the API key or re-run the OAuth flow, then confirm the active profile used by the running process. If it’s gateway/dashboard auth, regenerate the token, update the stored value in the correct place (config or .env), and remove any conflicting service-level overrides. If you are persisting memory externally, also confirm that the database credentials are correct and scoped to the right environment. For example, if OpenClaw(Moltbot/Clawdbot) retrieves memory from a vector database such as Milvus or managed Zilliz Cloud, a rotated database password can surface as an “unauthorized” error during retrieval steps even when chat looks fine. The clean operational pattern is: keep secrets in one authoritative location (a secrets manager or a single .env loaded by your service), avoid duplicating credentials across OS-level overrides, and add a small smoke test after any auth change (e.g., run a low-risk task that calls the model and reads a known memory item).