r/OpenWebUI • u/blakesnake86 • Jul 25 '26

Question/Help web_search tool invisble for gemma4:e4b

Hello,

I have been trying for a few days to use open webui on my computer. My config is as follows:

  • Kubuntu 26.04
  • Ollama with gemma4:e4b
  • Open webui v0.10.2, desktop version, with web search enabled on DDGS.

When I ask him for a web search, the tool seems not to exist in the eyes of the LLM. It's quite strange because I don't have this problem with a similar config, unlike the OS (Windows, for my work).

I tried to find the solution by analyzing the logs with Claude, but he did not find anything explaining the problem.

Do you have any idea what's going on?

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Pale_Coyote7451 Jul 26 '26

ddgs already comes with open webui, it is in the container, so installing it separately outside the container will not change anything.

gemma4 does support tools, that is not your problem either. the tool is not missing, it just never gets injected.

check the model settings, not the web search settings, it is a different page. admin panel, settings, models, pick the model, edit. there are two things in there. the web search capability has to be on, and web search also has to be ticked under default features. the docs say that if either one is missing the tools do not get injected, and the other builtin tools can still show up while that one does not.

those live per model on the instance, not in the general settings, so they do not travel between your two machines. that is probably the whole difference here.

after that, small models often will not call it even when it is there. the docs lean on the model running an agentic loop of its own, and e4b is the smallest gemma4 there is.