Discord File Attachments Missing After OpenClaw v2026.2.24? Here's What's Happening

If you've upgraded to OpenClaw v2026.2.24 or later and noticed your Discord agent suddenly can't see file attachments, you're not alone. A community member recently reported this regression in GitHub Issue #28296, and the technical analysis points to a specific cause that's worth understanding.

The Symptom

After upgrading, your agent stops receiving attachment metadata when users send files in Discord. Images, documents, and other files that previously worked are now invisible to the agent. The messages come through, but the attachments are completely missing from the context.

The Suspected Cause

According to community analysis, this appears to be related to changes introduced in v2026.2.24. The changelog for that release mentions:

Discord/Proxy + reactions + model picker: thread channel proxy fetch into inbound media/sticker downloads...

The suspected behavior: OpenClaw's new proxy-aware inbound media fetch path may be failing silently in certain network environments. When the download fails, instead of passing through the attachment metadata (URL, filename, content type), the entire attachment gets dropped from the agent's context.

Who's Affected?

This particularly impacts users running OpenClaw behind VPNs, proxies, or in environments where DNS resolves to private IP ranges. One user reported running OpenClaw behind a VPN in TUN mode where all DNS resolves to 198.18.x.x ranges—a common pattern for corporate networks and privacy-focused setups.

The Expected Behavior

The agent should receive attachment metadata regardless of whether the file download itself succeeds. Even if OpenClaw can't download the file for processing, the URL and filename should still be passed through so the agent can:

1. Acknowledge that an attachment exists
2. Attempt its own fetch if needed
3. Ask the user to share the file another way

Silently dropping attachments creates a confusing user experience where the agent appears to ignore files without explanation.

Temporary Workarounds

While waiting for an official fix, you have a few options:

1. Downgrade to v2026.2.23 — If file attachments are critical for your use case, rolling back to the previous version restores the old behavior.

2. Check your network configuration — If you're running behind a proxy, ensure OpenClaw can reach Discord's CDN (cdn.discordapp.com). You may need to add exceptions to your proxy rules.

3. Use alternative file sharing — Ask users to share files via direct links or cloud storage URLs that the agent can fetch independently.

What's Next?

The issue has been reported and the community has identified the likely regression range (PR #25232 / #25695 area). If you're experiencing this issue, adding your configuration details to the GitHub issue helps the maintainers reproduce and fix it faster.

For those comfortable digging into the code, the relevant changes are in the Discord inbound media handling introduced in v2026.2.24. The fix would likely involve ensuring attachment metadata is always passed through to the agent context, with the actual file content being optional based on download success.

---

Have you experienced this issue? Drop a comment if you've found other workarounds or if this affects you in a different network configuration. The more data points, the faster the fix.