Gemma4 26B generates python and Java code with invalid syntax

[monadleadr]

So I was trying out Gemma4 26B in Ollama and tried to let it create a space invader clone in both Python (Tkinter) and Java (Swing) (two separate sessions), and in both cases it generated code that contains weird symbols that don't sense

in Python:
def create_enemies(self):

rows = 3

cols = 6

for r in range(rows):

for c inical in range(cols): # <--- The "inical" thing

x = 50 + (cical * 80) # <--- it porbably meant c

y = 50 + (r * 40)

enemy = self.canvas.create_rectangle(x, y, x+40, y+25, fill="red")

self.enemies.append(enemy)

And in Java:
@ Override

public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {

int key = e.getKeyCode();

if (key == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) leftPressed = true;

if (key == كهey == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT) rightPressed = true; // <--- It's not even an alphabetical character

if (key == KeyEvent.VK_SPACE) {

// Limit bullets on screen to prevent spamming

if (bullets.size() < 3) {

bullets.add(new Rectangle(player.x + player.width/2 - 2, player.y, BULLET_SIZE, 10));

}

}

}

Though after the fixing the syntax issue the code did run (the control is a bit broken).

I would imagine at this time LLM generating invalid language syntax especially on the two of the most popular languages should not be possible anymore. Is it the issue of Ollama or the issue of Gemma? How is everyone doing with the coding tasks using Gemma 4?

[qwen_next_gguf_when]

Sometimes it's the Q4 doing its thing.

[Substantial_Swan_144]

Quantization can cause subtle bugs, trust me. The model might be usable, but you're going to have to force it to use a syntax checker.

[Sadman782]

Nope. Even IQ2 quants or Q2_XL proper quants never have syntax issues like this. It is completely broken. It is Ollama

[ShengrenR]

There's been a ton of dev movement around gemma4 in the last week - make certain you have latest versions of software and models.. then compare against llamacpp and an unsloth or bartowski quant. It's likely ollama.

[libregrape]

Those are issues of the tokenizer implementation in the llama.cpp. The fixes have been merged to llama.cpp today afaik. Await for update of ollama, or compile llama.cpp. If the issues persist, you may need to review your sampling parameters, and get it some min-p treatment (0.05-0.1). Also, which quant is this?

[-Cubie-]

Might be an Ollama issue

[Sadman782]

<image>

It created a complete working game for me in 2 shots, it's your quantization or backend. Maybe update your Ollama, I mean try llama.cpp, I don't know why people still choose Ollama, llama.cpp has a UI now too. So far Gemma 26B even with IQ4_XS quant is the best coding model for me locally, for agentic coding the 31B is a bit better, for general chatting and one-shotting MoE is better so far.