How do people actually use JSON output with DeepSeek?

The official docs say JSON mode might "occasionally" return empty responses, but for me, it happens constantly. It feels completely unusable out of the box. But here's what I don't get: I assume many apps are built on top of the DeepSeek API and they use JSON output, and they obviously run fine. So how do they actually fix or get around it? I have been trying every trick I can think of, including what AI told me to do, but nothing works for me. submitted by /u/CJCCJJ [link] [comments]