From 6802b155a806e9b6a5d2a4ef8461becef82c9278 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Tag <tag@austen.info>
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2026 21:53:49 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] fix: stop LLM retry loop when browser control service is
 unavailable (#17673)

Merged via /review-pr -> /prepare-pr -> /merge-pr.

Prepared head SHA: 90f47fe13289feecb36b75d289d1efee171a25fa
Co-authored-by: tag-assistant <260167501+tag-assistant@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: sebslight <19554889+sebslight@users.noreply.github.com>
Reviewed-by: @sebslight
---
 CHANGELOG.md                |  1 +
 src/browser/client-fetch.ts | 19 ++++++++++++++-----
 2 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index b1b07e3adeb..106c6d17072 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai
 - Web Fetch/Security: cap downloaded response body size before HTML parsing to prevent memory exhaustion from oversized or deeply nested pages. Thanks @xuemian168.
 - Skills/Security: restrict `download` installer `targetDir` to the per-skill tools directory to prevent arbitrary file writes. Thanks @Adam55A-code.
 - Agents: return an explicit timeout error reply when an embedded run times out before producing any payloads, preventing silent dropped turns during slow cache-refresh transitions. (#16659) Thanks @liaosvcaf and @vignesh07.
+- Browser/Agents: when browser control service is unavailable, return explicit non-retry guidance (instead of "try again") so models do not loop on repeated browser tool calls until timeout. (#17673) Thanks @austenstone.
 - Agents/OpenAI: force `store=true` for direct OpenAI Responses/Codex runs to preserve multi-turn server-side conversation state, while leaving proxy/non-OpenAI endpoints unchanged. (#16803) Thanks @mark9232 and @vignesh07.
 - Agents/Security: sanitize workspace paths before embedding into LLM prompts (strip Unicode control/format chars) to prevent instruction injection via malicious directory names. Thanks @aether-ai-agent.
 - Agents/Context: apply configured model `contextWindow` overrides after provider discovery so `lookupContextTokens()` honors operator config values (including discovery-failure paths). (#17404) Thanks @michaelbship and @vignesh07.
diff --git a/src/browser/client-fetch.ts b/src/browser/client-fetch.ts
index 3fe71934b3e..c8617d0f79c 100644
--- a/src/browser/client-fetch.ts
+++ b/src/browser/client-fetch.ts
@@ -90,9 +90,16 @@ function withLoopbackBrowserAuth(
 }
 
 function enhanceBrowserFetchError(url: string, err: unknown, timeoutMs: number): Error {
-  const hint = isAbsoluteHttp(url)
-    ? "If this is a sandboxed session, ensure the sandbox browser is running and try again."
-    : `Start (or restart) the OpenClaw gateway (OpenClaw.app menubar, or \`${formatCliCommand("openclaw gateway")}\`) and try again.`;
+  const isLocal = !isAbsoluteHttp(url);
+  // Human-facing hint for logs/diagnostics.
+  const operatorHint = isLocal
+    ? `Restart the OpenClaw gateway (OpenClaw.app menubar, or \`${formatCliCommand("openclaw gateway")}\`).`
+    : "If this is a sandboxed session, ensure the sandbox browser is running.";
+  // Model-facing suffix: explicitly tell the LLM NOT to retry.
+  // Without this, models see "try again" and enter an infinite tool-call loop.
+  const modelHint =
+    "Do NOT retry the browser tool — it will keep failing. " +
+    "Use an alternative approach or inform the user that the browser is currently unavailable.";
   const msg = String(err);
   const msgLower = msg.toLowerCase();
   const looksLikeTimeout =
@@ -103,10 +110,12 @@ function enhanceBrowserFetchError(url: string, err: unknown, timeoutMs: number):
     msgLower.includes("aborterror");
   if (looksLikeTimeout) {
     return new Error(
-      `Can't reach the OpenClaw browser control service (timed out after ${timeoutMs}ms). ${hint}`,
+      `Can't reach the OpenClaw browser control service (timed out after ${timeoutMs}ms). ${operatorHint} ${modelHint}`,
     );
   }
-  return new Error(`Can't reach the OpenClaw browser control service. ${hint} (${msg})`);
+  return new Error(
+    `Can't reach the OpenClaw browser control service. ${operatorHint} ${modelHint} (${msg})`,
+  );
 }
 
 async function fetchHttpJson<T>(