mediumruntime

OpenAI Token Limit Exceeded - Context Length 4097

Published 2/24/2026

Symptoms

Error message: 'openai.error.InvalidRequestError: This model's maximum context length is 4097 tokens'. Agent crashes when processing large files or long conversations.

Root Cause

The AI model (GPT-3.5-turbo) has a maximum context window of 4097 tokens. When the conversation history or file content exceeds this limit, the API request fails.

Solution

Solution Steps

Upgrade to GPT-4 with larger context window:

# In .env file
OPENAI_API_MODEL=gpt-4-turbo

Enable conversation summarization:

# In auto-gpt.json
{
  "memory": {
    "summarize_long_conversations": true,
    "max_tokens": 3000
  }
}

Split large files into chunks:

# Process files in smaller segments
chunk_size = 2000  # tokens

Clear conversation history periodically:

# Reset memory when needed
rm -rf auto-gpt-memory/

Verification

Process a large file or long conversation and confirm that the token limit error no longer occurs. Monitor token usage in the logs.

Affected Components

apillm

OpenAI Token Limit Exceeded - Context Length 4097

Solution Steps

Tags

Affected Components