I looked around and didn't see this problem elsewhere, so I thought I'd post it for the record.
The students in one of our classes wrote some LONG journal entries (and there were a fair number of students, too). When the instructor viewed the journal feedback page it was cut off (the last few entries were missing and there was no submit button).
After some investigation I figured out that bumping up max_execution_time in php.ini would make the problem go away (I increased it to 3 minutes from the default 30 seconds). Presumably the server was killing the script after it took more than 30 seconds to execute.
I realize that the journals were never intended to be this large, and have encouraged the instructor to find some way of breaking the journals into smaller segments. He was using blogs for this activity in previous semesters (this is the first time he's used Moodle) so journals seemed like the closest match.
I told him about the blog feature that's under development, so perhaps the next time he teaches the course he'll be able to use Moodle blogs instead. That'd be ideal.
Problem with lengthy journals, feedback page cut off (includes fix)
by Tony Hursh -
Number of replies: 3
In reply to Tony Hursh
Re: Problem with lengthy journals, feedback page cut off (includes fix)
by Martin Dougiamas -
Yes, exactly. In fact, once the new Assignments module is finished soon (which includes an Online Assignment type that looks like Journal) then Journal will be going away entirely.
And yes, Blogs will be terrific for ongoing reflective activities.
And yes, Blogs will be terrific for ongoing reflective activities.
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Problem with lengthy journals, feedback page cut off (includes fix)
by Tony Hursh -
He's asked if I can fix it so he can pick from a list of students and view their journals individually, rather than seeing them all on one screen.
I'm going to take a crack at it, I think. I've been wanting to get up to speed with Moodle coding for a while, so this might be a good place to start.
He thinks Moodle is terrific, by the way.
I'm going to take a crack at it, I think. I've been wanting to get up to speed with Moodle coding for a while, so this might be a good place to start.
He thinks Moodle is terrific, by the way.
In reply to Tony Hursh
Re: Problem with lengthy journals, feedback page cut off (includes fix)
by Tony Hursh -
Here's a first cut at allowing teachers to pick individual journal users from a list. This seems to be working for us, but caveat emptor. This is the first actual Moodle hacking I've done. If someone who actually knows his way around the codebase wants to point out all the things I've undoubtedly done wrong, I'll be very pleased. 
The UI could use some polishing, for sure.
I doubt if this change would be worth rolling into the actual production code since the journal module is going away anyway, but I thought I'd post it in case someone else wants it. Or maybe this should go in the developer forums?
Usual disclaimers apply... this seems to work on our server under 1.4, but may not on yours. Back up your course before testing it!
There's an altered language file for the journal in the archive (only in English, sorry...) and several files that need to go in mod/journal.
I doubt if this change would be worth rolling into the actual production code since the journal module is going away anyway, but I thought I'd post it in case someone else wants it. Or maybe this should go in the developer forums?
Usual disclaimers apply... this seems to work on our server under 1.4, but may not on yours. Back up your course before testing it!
There's an altered language file for the journal in the archive (only in English, sorry...) and several files that need to go in mod/journal.