If you don't want the thinking, you can pass `enable_thinking: false` to the `chat_template_kwargs`. If using promptfoo, this can be done via:

    providers:
      - # llama-server
        id: openai:chat:qwen
        config:
          apiBaseUrl: http://localhost:7876
          apiKey: "..."
          passthrough:
            chat_template_kwargs:
              enable_thinking: false

The looping may be due to quantization -- I've seen it on locally quantized Q6_K Qwen 3.5/3.6 models. I recall seeing somewhere (here or r/LocalLlama) that Qwen models are sensitive to quantization of the keys, though I haven't yet experimented with/looked into fixing this. (I've been building up my promptfoo tests/infrastructure to detect looping, etc. on Qwen and other models.)