Audio transcription lacks diagnostic logging

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Jan 31, 2026 by batumilove Closed Mar 1, 2026

Summary

Audio transcription via Deepgram (or other providers) happens silently without any diagnostic logging, making it impossible to debug transcription failures.

Environment

  • OpenClaw version: 2026.1.29 (dev channel)
  • Audio config: tools.media.audio.enabled: true, provider: deepgram, model: nova-3
  • Diagnostics flags include: audio.*

Problem

When a voice message arrives (e.g., from Telegram), the transcription either works or silently fails. There are no logs indicating:

  1. Whether a file download was attempted
  2. Whether Deepgram API was called
  3. Success/failure of transcription
  4. Any errors or reasons for skipping transcription

Reproduction

  1. Send two voice messages to the bot in quick succession
  2. First message: no transcript appeared in agent context
  3. Second message: transcript appeared correctly ([Audio] Transcript: ...)
  4. Logs show no difference between the two — no audio-related entries at all

Expected Behavior

With audio.* in diagnostics flags, expect to see logs like:

[audio] downloading file from telegram: file_id=xxx
[audio] deepgram transcription start: provider=deepgram model=nova-3
[audio] deepgram transcription complete: duration=1.2s chars=45

Or on failure:

[audio] deepgram transcription failed: error="rate limit" status=429
[audio] skipping transcription: reason="file download failed"

Impact

Without logging, users cannot:

  • Debug why some voice messages aren't transcribed
  • Detect Deepgram API issues (rate limits, auth failures)
  • Verify audio pipeline is working correctly

Suggested Fix

Add subsystem logging to the audio transcription pipeline, gated by audio.* diagnostic flag.

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