[BUG] the telegram channel can't work

[sdial]

Quick Summary

the telegram channel can't work, the log:

ERROR Getting updates: telego: getUpdates: api: 409 "Conflict: terminated by other getUpdates request; make sure that only one bot instance is running"

Environment & Tools

• PicoClaw Version: 0.12 with fish shell
• AI Model & Provider: gemini-flash-lite-latest
• Operating System: ubuntu 24.04
• Channels: Telegram

[alexhoshina]

Look here https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw?tab=readme-ov-file#telegram-bot-says-conflict-terminated-by-other-getupdates

Telegram bot says "Conflict: terminated by other getUpdates"
This happens when another instance of the bot is running. Make sure only one picoclaw gateway is running at a time.

[Giordano10]

Type htop in your terminal and check how many instances of picoclaw are running. Use ps aux | grep <process_name>, where process_name is the name you defined for the picoclaw service. If more than one result is found, use the command killall <process_name> to terminate all processes.

[nikolasdehor]

Adding to @alexhoshina and @Giordano10 responses — this is almost always caused by multiple bot instances polling the same Telegram token.

Common causes beyond obvious duplicate processes:

1. Systemd auto-restart: If picoclaw is configured as a systemd service with Restart=always, a crashed process may respawn while a manually-started instance is already running. Check with:

   systemctl status picoclaw-gateway
   ps aux | grep picoclaw

2. Docker + host process: If testing both inside a container and directly on the host.

3. Webhook conflict: If a webhook was previously set for this bot token, Telegram may reject getUpdates calls. Clear it with:

   curl https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/deleteWebhook

4. Fish shell job control: Since you mentioned fish shell — if you backgrounded a previous instance with Ctrl+Z / bg, it may still be running. Check with jobs in your fish session.

The 409 Conflict error specifically means Telegram is receiving concurrent getUpdates long-poll requests with the same token, so the fix is always to ensure exactly one instance is running.