diff --git a/lib/spack/spack/solver/asp.py b/lib/spack/spack/solver/asp.py
index 89d5fce628e..438e753ee9a 100644
--- a/lib/spack/spack/solver/asp.py
+++ b/lib/spack/spack/solver/asp.py
@@ -626,9 +626,9 @@ def _get_cause_tree(self, cause, conditions, condition_causes, literals, indent=
             )
         ]
 
-    def get_cause_tree(self, cause):
-        conditions = dict(extract_args(self.model, "condition"))
-        condition_causes = list(extract_args(self.model, "condition_cause"))
+    def get_cause_tree(self, result, best_model, cause):
+        conditions = dict(extract_args(best_model, "condition"))
+        condition_causes = list(extract_args(best_model, "condition_cause"))
         return self._get_cause_tree(cause, conditions, condition_causes, [])
 
     def handle_error(self, msg, *args):
@@ -650,10 +650,6 @@ def handle_error(self, msg, *args):
 
         msg = msg.format(*msg_args)
 
-        for cause in set(cause_args):
-            for c in self.get_cause_tree(cause):
-                msg += f"\n{c}"
-
         # For variant formatting, we sometimes have to construct specs
         # to format values properly. Find/replace all occurances of
         # Spec(...) with the string representation of the spec mentioned
@@ -661,6 +657,10 @@ def handle_error(self, msg, *args):
         for spec_str in specs_to_construct:
             msg = msg.replace("Spec(%s)" % spec_str, str(spack.spec.Spec(spec_str)))
 
+        for cause in set(cause_args):
+            for c in self.get_cause_tree(cause):
+                msg += f"\n{c}"
+
         return msg
 
     def message(self, errors) -> str: