Fix a model that repeats itself with one decoding setting

Three paragraphs in, the model latches onto one sentence and just keeps saying it.

IntermediateRead 5 minDoing: about 30 minutes7 steps

▶ Start

What you'll have at the end

One saved reply that looped, and a second saved reply from the same prompt with the loop gone

Before you start

You need

A prompt that reliably makes your own model loop partway through a reply, on a setup where you can also read and change one repetition-control decoding setting on that same call.

Not covered

A loop that only starts after a long conversation runs past its context limit, or a reply that never stops because the model missed its own stop token, are different failures with different fixes; this covers a single reply that loops because nothing discourages the model from repeating itself.

Leans on

7 steps

Where to go next

Match temperature and top_p to the job instead of the defaults

go there instead if the loop traces back to temperature or top_p sitting too low rather than the repetition setting being off; this recipe assumes the repetition setting is the actual cause

Checked 18 Aug 2026

Part of the Large Language Models (LLMs) cookbook