Stop Your Moodle LMS from Nagging

Whether your Moodle LMS site is public or private, there are several good reasons to register your Moodle LMS-based site with Moodle HQ. However, you may also have good reasons to not want to register your Moodle site. For example, you might have non-production sites for testing or experimenting (sometimes called a sandbox site), or it may only be available on the intranet (internal network) of your organization. Fortunately, registration of your Moodle site is optional, but is there a way to stop your site from nagging you?

If you are tired of your site constantly nagging you to register and upgrade, you are not alone. It’s like having a needy pet that constantly craves attention. Fear not, there are ways to tame the nagging Moodle beasty and put an end to its incessant demands.

Your Site Is Not Yet Registered. Register Your Site

First up, let’s talk about disabling the Registration Reminder. Site Administrators, you know what I am talking about.

Fortunately, removing this block is as easy as adding one line to your Moodle site’s config.php file. I know this is not a good time to drop the ball on you but you will have to figure out how you edit that file on your own as this will vary depending on your web hosting.

Anywhere after the $CFG = new stdClass(); line but before the require_once(DIR . ‘/lib/setup.php’); line of code, simply add the following two lines:

// Removes Your Site Is Not Registered and Register Your Site button from Site Administration.
$CFG->site_is_public = false;

Moodle Update Notifications

Anyone tired of those pesky automated emails that Moodle sends you reminding you to upgrade? New releases of Moodle LMS include bug and security fixes, and may also include new features. While it is a good reminder, it can also feel like a pesky house guest at times. If you diligently schedule your updates, you hardly need to be reminded to upgrade Moodle.

For Site Administrators, this is even easier than disabling the Register Your Site block mentioned above. Simply navigate to Site Administration > Server (tab) > Update Notifications – in the Server section, uncheck Automatically Check for Available Updates and click the Save Changes button. BUT don’t forget to update your Moodle site regularly.

Alternatively, if you don’t want anyone to ever mess around with that setting, you can lock it by also adding the following three lines to your Moodle’s config.php, again anywhere after the $CFG = new stdClass(); line but before the require_once(DIR . ‘/lib/setup.php’); line of code:

// Stop Moodle from sending nagging reminders to upgrade to all Site Administrators.
$CFG->updateautocheck = false;
$CFG->disableupdatenotifications = true;

As you can see, there are several ways to stop your Moodle site from nagging you. The choice is yours. So go forth, and enjoy a peaceful and registration-free Moodle experience.

But remember to update or upgrade your site regularly!

See you next month!

Michael Milette

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Michael Milette

Consultant at TNG Consulting

Michael Milette is the owner and an independent consultant with TNG Consulting Inc. in Canada. He works with government, non-profit organizations, businesses and educational institutions on Moodle-related projects. Michael writes about implementing Moodle LMS, developing in Moodle, Moodle administration, using the FilterCodes plugin (his own project), creating multi-language Moodle implementations and courses, and WCAG 2.1 accessibility.

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Latest posts by Michael Milette (see all)

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