openclaw-lighthouse

OpenAI Codex OAuth refresh failed: stale openclaw binary in PATH + re-auth via onboard

Problem

OpenClaw stops replying and shows:

• ⚠️ Agent failed before reply: OAuth token refresh failed for openai-codex

At the same time, install reports success (new version), but shell still resolves an older openclaw binary.

Root cause

Two issues overlapped:

1. Old binary first in PATH
   • openclaw --version returned old version (for example 2026.2.26),
   • while ~/.openclaw/bin/openclaw --version returned new version (2026.3.2).
2. Re-auth command confusion in this state
   • direct models auth login --provider openai-codex may fail in some environments,
   • onboarding auth flow worked reliably for openai-codex re-auth.

Fix / workaround

1) Verify and switch to the correct binary

~/.openclaw/bin/openclaw --version
export PATH="$HOME/.openclaw/bin:$HOME/.openclaw/tools/node/bin:$PATH"
hash -r
openclaw --version
which -a openclaw

Expected first path:

/root/.openclaw/bin/openclaw

Persist for future shells:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.openclaw/bin:$HOME/.openclaw/tools/node/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

2) Re-auth OpenAI Codex via onboarding auth flow

~/.openclaw/bin/openclaw onboard --auth-choice openai-codex --skip-channels --skip-skills --skip-ui --skip-health --no-install-daemon

3) Restart and verify

~/.openclaw/bin/openclaw gateway restart
~/.openclaw/bin/openclaw models status --json
~/.openclaw/bin/openclaw logs --follow

Validation

• reproduced before fix
• fixed after change

Upstream status

• local workaround only
• issue opened upstream
• fixed upstream

References

• Logs: openclaw logs --follow
• Related symptoms: OpenAI Codex auth/profile failures and no-reply scenarios