Fix clw-memory-failure: OpenClaw Memory Allocation Failure During Initialization

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 19:19:13 +0800

1. Symptoms

The clw-memory-failure error in OpenClaw manifests during initialization phases, such as context creation, device enumeration, or buffer allocation. This error indicates that the library failed to allocate sufficient host memory for internal structures.

Typical scenarios include:

[OpenClaw Error] clw-memory-failure at clw_context_create: Failed to allocate memory for device list (requested 1024 KB)


Or during program building:

CLW_ERROR(clw-memory-failure): Memory allocation failed in clw_program_build. System RAM low.


Symptoms often accompany high memory usage from other processes, large GPU device lists (e.g., multi-GPU setups), or when running on resource-constrained systems like laptops with integrated graphics.

In code, it throws an exception or returns `CLW_ERROR_MEMORY_FAILURE`:

```cpp
#include <openclaw/clw.hpp>

try {
 clw::Platform platforms = clw::Platform::getPlatforms();
 // ... further init
} catch (const clw::Error& e) {
 if (e.code() == CLW_ERROR_MEMORY_FAILURE) {
 std::cerr << "clw-memory-failure: " << e.what() << std::endl;
 }
}

Logs may show preceding warnings like “High memory pressure detected” or OpenCL ICD loader issues. Performance degrades before failure: slow device queries or hangs during clw::Context::create.

Opencl-Wrapper on ErrorVault — Developer Error Code Dictionary

Fix clw-memory-failure: OpenClaw Memory Allocation Failure During Initialization

1. Symptoms

Typical scenarios include: