Error: Found multiple matches for oldString. Provide more surrounding context to make the match unique.

[HardyDou]

Description

Error: Found multiple matches for oldString. Provide more surrounding context to make the match unique.

Plugins

No response

OpenCode version

1.2.15

Steps to reproduce

No response

Screenshot and/or share link

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Operating System

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Terminal

No response

[HardyDou]

← Edit lib/presentation/providers/vault_provider.dart
Error: Found multiple matches for oldString. Provide more surrounding context to make the match unique.
我的错误。import 'dart:io'; 在 line 17 和 line 18 都有。我需要提供行号来精确删除。我将删除 line 18 的导入。
← Edit lib/presentation/providers/vault_provider.dart
Error: Could not find oldString in the file. It must match exactly, including whitespace, indentation, and line endings.
我的错误。edit 工具不接受行号作为 oldString 的一部分。我只能通过匹配精确的字符串内容来删除。
我将删除 line 18 的 import 'dart:io';，只匹配这一行。
← Edit lib/presentation/providers/vault_provider.dart
Error: Found multiple matches for oldString. Provide more surrounding context to make the match unique.
我又犯了同样的错误，因为 import 'dart:io'; 有多个匹配。
我将尝试通过匹配 line 18 处的 import 'dart:io'; 加上它后面的换行符来使其独一无二。
删除 line 18 处的重复导入：
← Edit lib/presentation/providers/vault_provider.dart
Error: Found multiple matches for oldString. Provide more surrounding context to make the match unique.

[github-actions]

This issue doesn't fully meet our contributing guidelines.

What needs to be fixed:

• The Steps to reproduce field is empty. Bug reports require at least some context about what you were doing when the error occurred and how to reproduce it.
• The description only repeats the error message from the title. Please provide more detail: what file was being edited, what task you asked the AI to perform, etc.

Please edit this issue to address the above within 2 hours, or it will be automatically closed.

---

This issue might be a duplicate of an existing issue. Please check:

• Edit tool bug - ambigous edits can lead to file corrupting #1261: Edit tool bug - ambiguous edits can lead to file corrupting (same "multiple matches for oldString" scenario, now closed)

If you believe this was flagged incorrectly, please let a maintainer know.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically closed because it was not updated to meet our contributing guidelines within the 2-hour window.

Feel free to open a new issue that follows our issue templates.

[alexzoo]

I am also frequently running into these edit tool errors in day‑to‑day use:

Error: Could not find oldString in the file. It must match exactly, including whitespace, indentation, and line endings.

Sometimes also: oldString not found in content or was found multiple times.

From the user perspective this typically happens in workflows like:

Open a file (often markdown or code).

Make some manual edits and save the file.

Ask the model to refactor/rewrite a specific section (e.g. a paragraph or a function).

The model calls the edit tool, but the tool fails with one of the errors above, even though the text is clearly present in the current file.

It feels like the server‑side snapshot of the file is often out of sync with the editor buffer, or small invisible differences (whitespace, line endings) are enough to make the tool give up. From the outside it looks non‑deterministic: the exact same prompt sometimes works, sometimes fails with oldString errors.

Environment:

OpenCode version:

OS: macOS (Apple Silicon)

Models:

A few suggestions that would make this much easier to live with:

Make the edit tool more tolerant to minor formatting differences, or at least try a fuzzy match before failing.

If oldString cannot be found, show a short diff between the expected oldString and what is actually in the file, so the user can understand what changed.

If the problem is a stale server snapshot, surface that explicitly and suggest a concrete action (e.g. refresh/reload the file or retry the request).

[manicko]

same here