bitnet-b1.58-2B-4T runs FFN with SiLU instead of relu2 - wrong logits on every backend
Author: msrovaniCreated Aug 8, 2026Updated Sep 7, 2026
bitnet-b1.58-2B-4T runs the FFN with SiLU instead of relu² — wrong logits on every backend
Summary
The official microsoft/bitnet-b1.58-2B-4T model declares "hidden_act": "relu2" in its config.json, but the BitNet.cpp runtime never reads it: the FFN graph is built with a hardcoded LLM_FFN_SILU. The model therefore runs with the wrong activation function on every backend (CPU and GPU), producing wrong-but-finite output — the same failure class as #586.
Root cause
src/models/bitnet.cpp:133—build_ffn(...)is called with a hardcodedLLM_FFN_SILU.src/llama-model.cpp— theLLM_FFN_OP_TYPES_FROM_STRINGmap has"relu"but no"relu2", andllm_ffn_op_type_from_string()is never wired into the bitnet arch.utils/convert-hf-to-gguf-bitnet.py/utils/convert-ms-to-gguf-bitnet.py— neither converter writes<arch>.hidden_activation, so the existing plumbing (llama_hparams::llm_ffn_op,LLM_KV_HIDDEN_ACT,LLM_FFN_RELU_SQRinsrc/llama-graph.cpp) is never exercised for bitnet models.
The graph builder already implements LLM_FFN_RELU_SQR (relu → sqr, src/llama-graph.cpp:1690); with LLM_FFN_PAR gating it produces exactly relu²(gate) * up, matching the HF BitnetMLP (act_fn(gate) * up).
Fix (attached patches)
src/llama-model.cpp: add{ "relu2", LLM_FFN_RELU_SQR }toLLM_FFN_OP_TYPES_FROM_STRING.src/models/bitnet.cpp: read<arch>.hidden_activationinload_arch_hparams(mirroringllama_model_modern_bert), defaulting toLLM_FFN_SILUfor backward compatibility with existing GGUF files; usehparams.llm_ffn_opin the graph.- Converters: write
add_hidden_act("relu2").
Verification
- Convert
microsoft/bitnet-b1.58-2B-4Twith the patched converter;gguf-dumpshould showbitnet_b158.hidden_activation = "relu2". - Compare logits before/after: with the fix the model produces coherent text; without it, output is wrong-but-finite.
- Old GGUF files (no key) keep the previous SiLU behavior — no regression.
Related
- #586 — same wrong-but-finite class (ARM i2_s layout).
Source: microsoft/BitNet