Are you guys actually using local tool calling or is it a collective prank?

Reddit r/LocalLLaMA / 4/19/2026

💬 OpinionSignals & Early TrendsIdeas & Deep AnalysisTools & Practical Usage

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Key Points

A Reddit user reports struggling to get local tool calling working reliably in Open WebUI running via Docker, using models served from LM Studio.
They observe inconsistent results across multiple models (e.g., Qwen3.5/Qwen3.6 and Gemma4), including hallucinated outputs like claiming to create files/folders that do not exist or fabricating completed HTML websites.
The user also notes suspected “executing” loops where the model appears stuck rather than completing the task.
They ask whether these behaviors reflect current limitations of smaller local models or if they are misconfiguring something, emphasizing that they are not using large context windows and are issuing straightforward prompts.
Overall, the post challenges whether the community’s praise for local tool calling is justified, suggesting a possible gap between expectations and real-world reliability.

I don't know if it's something I am doing horribly wrong or what, but running Open WebUI w/ Terminal on Docker with the models on LM Studio and I am starting to think the community keeps praising the tool calling feature just to cope lol

Qwen3.5 27B, 35B, Gemma4 26B, Qwen3.6 35B, GPS-OSS 20B - I have tried them all using the recommended parameters from Unsloth and asking them to create a single file with data is very finicky when it works.

Today with Gemma4, it kept assuring me it created a folder and file, but nothing existed. Qwen3.6 kept gaslighting me into believing the empty .html file is indeed the modern website I asked for, ready for production. And if they are not hallucinating, they are stuck in executing loops

I am not pushing the context (just two or three normal prompts) and I am not being vague or asking for anything complicated either. Is this simply the current limitations of small local models, or am I doing something particularly wrong?

submitted by /u/Mayion
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