am i the only one facing issues with the test case while i return something random like "abcd" and it gives an error , too many values to unpack

Please don't post solutions (even non-working ones) in the discourse. If you post code, please use the spoiler flag.

Having an unreachable return statement is a general problem; if used with recursion it just means you will not only get erroneous None return values, but also the occasional Stack Overflow. In your code: what happens when the recursion stack unwinds back to the original calling function and exits the if statement. What follows it? Nothing. Ergo None.

I don't know what inputs you're using locally. It's up to you to follow what path your code takes step by step for any given input. We can't do your debugging for you :)

well , isnt this problem about recursive functions ? also why does it work on repl but not here

Please don't post solutions/code in the discourse without the spoiler flag.

You have a return statement nested inside an if/else clause. This is a code smell. What if the if clause is always true, when does your code ever return ans? In Python, a function that doesn't have an explicit return value (or, in your case, an unreachable return statement) returns None by default.

ive tried my best and i dont see any other way to improve this

I can't tell the solution here. But think if you can first reduce the range. That would be the first optimization. And then see if you're seeing some mathematical pattern.

and how to do that?

Yes and by a lot

Yes.

Read Darren1182003's post below.

why .title() isnt working?