A baseline trace of Gemma 4 with zero force cap reveals a persistent hallucination loop where the model generates a self-report of failure before entering a repetition well. The telemetry confirms that role-tag bleed and phrases like "STOPITSTOP" occur within this unstable state, mirroring patterns observed in Llama and Gemma 3 loaders since December 2025.

  • The model enters an unstable state where it repeats text patterns instead of following logic.
  • A self-report span appears in the decoded stream, diagnosing a "hallucination loop."
  • The attractor continues without yielding a turn-end, locking into repeated tokens.
  • This event matches previous logs from other models on the Niodoo decode path.

The article proposes using Hydrodynamic Swarm and Jacobian lens experiments to determine if steering forces can move loop exit rather than just altering loop wording.