Web Search in OpenWebUi
I have this test prompt that I use for figuring out whether a setup can provide me with reliable information. It is "What can you tell me about the 1974 FIFA world cup final?". I find that information like the nations playing, date, location, and final score are generally accurate, but when it comes to who scored and when, it's usually a hallucination fest, if web search does not function properly. I am using llama.cpp via llama-server and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-UD-Q4_K_XL.gguf as the backend. Despite the fact that I see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_FIFA_World_Cup_final in the search results returned in OpenWebUi, it always gives the wrong details, while I get a perfect answer every time from PicoClaw (a tiny OpenClaw-like agentic system), and it has been able to do this pretty much right after the install without much fuss. Not only that, PicoClaw seems to be able to tell if and when a web search is even needed in the first place, whereas OpenWebUi seems to trigger a search for every prompt, when web search is enabled. Is PicoClaw the better tool for the job, or did I just not configure OpenWebUi correctly?
Edit: thanks for all who responded! Enabling native function calling is the key. There are at least three places where this can be done:
- Admin Panel - > Models -> [Model Name] -> Advanced Params -> Function Calling -> native
- Workspace -> [Workspace Model] -> Advanced Params -> Function Calling -> native
- Admin Panel - > Models -> Model Parameters -> Function Calling -> native
I found that changing the setting for the base model in 1. does not automatically also change it for the derived Workspace models. The last one seems to be the default for all. The relevant pieces of the documentation can be found here.
Beyond that, prompting for accuracy and grounding the response on verifiable sources is still key for a chance to get it right in the first shot.