This is the classroom problem called 'Longest sequence finder'. I have given some simple code that worked for me, also my inputs are lists of a sequence which can also be a string:
def longest_substring(list1,list2):
both=[]
if len(list1)>len(list2):
small=list2
big=list1
else:
small=list1
big=list2
removes=0
stop=0
for i in small:
for j in big:
if i!=j:
removes+=1
if stop==1:
break
elif i==j:
both.append(i)
for q in range(removes+1):
big.pop(0)
stop=1
break
removes=0
return both