Unable to update issue description field size limit in redmine

Question

I'm a Redmine administrator, using Redmine 2.2.0.

In projects there is a tab named issues, which has a issue description field. I'm only able to add 645 lines into the issue description field. But I need to add more lines.

Is it a bug of Redmine? Does anyone know how to increase the size of the field? Which ruby file do I need to edit?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

I'm only able to add 645 lines into the issue description field. But I need to add more lines. Is it a bug of Redmine?

No it is not a bug. It depends on DB column property. For example if you use MySQL it means your limit is 64 Kilobytes (see this and this)

Does anyone know how to increase the size of the field? Which ruby file do I need to edit?

According to this answer (be careful it is for MySQL!) you can write a migration and change issues.descriptions to binary with your limit.

# Migration file
def up
  change_column :issues, :description, :binary, :limit => 10.megabyte
end

def down
  change_column :issues, :description, :text
end

I have never used binary for saving texts so please test it carefully.

Another important question: Where to put a new migration?

way 1 (right way): Generate a simple plugin. The one functionality of it will be to add a migration to update issues.description

way 2 (wrong way): generate a migration in Redmine core and run it. Schema will be updated but Git won't see it because schema.rb is in gitignore But a new migration will be under git so be careful during next updating.

Answer 2

Why are you trying to increase the description field? If you think that it's the default field to add project notes, it's not. Project notes should be added to the "issue notes" field, which in return builds up the wiki for the project tasks. The definition field should be used (as its name indicates) to define the task, requirements, definition of done, the initial analysis of the job, etc.