---
title: "Run OpenClaw with a Local LLM — Troubleshooting"
canonical: "https://build.nvidia.com/rtx/openclaw/troubleshooting.md"
---

| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---------|--------|-----|
| OpenClaw dashboard URL not loading | Gateway not running or wrong host/port | **Restart the OpenClaw gateway** so it reloads `~/.openclaw/openclaw.json`. **Verify:** Check that the gateway process is running with `pgrep -f openclaw` or `ps aux \| grep openclaw`. **Find URL/token:** Check the original installer output (scroll up in your terminal) or look in gateway logs (typically `~/.openclaw/logs/`) for the dashboard URL and access token |
| "Connection refused" to model (for example localhost:8000) | Local inference server not running, still loading, or wrong port | Confirm the backend is up (`curl http://localhost:8000/v1/models` for vLLM, or your LM Studio / Ollama status checks) and that `baseUrl` in `openclaw.json` matches the server |
| OpenClaw says no model available | Provider not configured or model handle mismatch | Add the provider to `~/.openclaw/openclaw.json` and ensure `id`/`name` exactly match the served handle |
| Out-of-memory or very slow inference | Model too large for available GPU memory or other GPU workloads | Use a smaller model from **Agent-ready Models**, lower context length / GPU memory utilization for vLLM, free GPU memory (close other apps), or check usage with `nvidia-smi` |
| WSL cannot reach model server on Windows host | `localhost` inside WSL is not the Windows host | Replace `127.0.0.1` / `localhost` in OpenClaw `baseUrl` with the Windows host IP as seen from WSL |
| Install script fails or dependencies missing | Missing system packages | Install curl and any required build tools; see [OpenClaw documentation](https://docs.openclaw.ai) for current requirements |
| Config changes not applied | Gateway not reloaded | Restart the OpenClaw gateway so it reloads `~/.openclaw/openclaw.json` |