Resolving Qwen OAuth Refresh Token Errors in OpenClaw

What's Happening\n\nSince OpenClaw version 2026.3.2, you might be getting hit with errors stating your Qwen OAuth refresh token has expired. Even if you have a valid token, the auto-refresh mechanism inside OpenClaw is failing to trigger, which locks you out of models like qwen-portal/coder-model and qwen-portal/vision-model every few hours.\n\n## The Fix\n\nBecause this is an issue with how the internal provider logic handles token rotation, there is no configuration flag to bypass it yet. Your only current fix is to force a re-authentication session when the agent fails:\n\nbash\nopenclaw models auth login --provider qwen-portal\n\n\nIf you are stuck, check your logs to confirm the error is indeed an OAuth timeout rather than a general network failure:\n\nbash\nopenclaw logs --follow\n\n\n## Why This Occurs\n\nThis is a known bug tracked in issue #36982. Unlike previous OAuth issues with providers like Anthropic (where the authentication plumbing was missing), the Qwen provider correctly registers the access, refresh, and expires fields. However, the background task that triggers the refresh before the token expires is failing to execute correctly. The root cause appears to be an issue with how the authentication profile maintains the refresh lifecycle, causing the system to discard or fail the refresh request prematurely.\n\n## Prevention\n\nThis issue is currently being investigated by the core team. There is no user-side configuration change that prevents this, as the logic is baked into extensions/qwen-portal-auth/index.ts. Keep your OpenClaw installation updated, as the fix will be pushed via a standard version release rather than a config update. You can track the progress of the fix directly on the GitHub issue mentioned below.

Last Updated: April 2026