Taxonomy free tagging limited to 255 , crashing site's update forms

yes, i have that problem, too.

on my site its also a little diseaster because i use community_tagging on the site. the module allows tags up to more than 255 chars, but then the node is no more editable.

is this fixed yet?

oh i just learned that this is very easily fixed by a mini module:
http://www.drupalcenter.de/node/7395#comment-27059

Christoph C. Cemper: Still an issue?

Since I don't speak german could someone spell out a little better what this mini-module fix entails? I see the bit of code, but where do I go about implementing it into my site? This is a somewhat critical issue on my site, as I definitely need the ability to tag more then the alloted limit.

Anyone?

Make a small module(most sites have one of these to put small pieces of code in already) and do something along these lines:

function minimodule_form_alter($form_id, &$form) {
  if (isset($form['taxonomy']['tags'][VID])) {
    $form['taxonomy']['tags'][VID]['#maxlength'] = 500;
  }
}

I managed to solve this by changing the #maxlength value in the taxonomy module.
I then deleted my existing tags vocabulary and created another, which then had an increased maxlength

Great tip, this solved the problem for me. Just a note, be sure to change VID to your taxonomy ID.

Here is something a bit more generic.
You do not have to modify the code (ie. VID), it work as-is.
It's more documented so hackers can dig in.
This is for Drupal 5 only

/**
 * Modify the create/edit node form so modify the behavior of the free
 * tagging vocabulary.
 */
function minimodule_form_alter($form_id, &$form) {
  // Only care when the form being shown is the form to create/edit a node.
  $editing_node = preg_match('/^(.+)_node_form$/', $form_id);

  // Only care when the form contains a free tag vocabulary.
  $contains_free_tags = isset($form['taxonomy']['tags']);

  if ($editing_node && $contains_free_tags) {

    foreach ($form['taxonomy']['tags'] as $vid => $info) {
      // Force the element to accept more characters than the default 255.
      $form['taxonomy']['tags'][$vid]['#maxlength'] = variable_get('max_freetag_vocabulary', 1024);

      // Complain if you provide too many characters.
      $form['taxonomy']['tags'][$vid]['#validate']['minimodule_validate_max_free_tags'] = array();
    }
  }
}

/**
 * Validate the number of characters in a free tagging vocabulary term.
 * Intended to be used in the form used to create/edit a node.
 * The goal is to prevent the field from silently cutting off the end
 * of your terms if you go over the limit.
 * This function is called by the form api when it is time to validate every elements.
 *
 */
function minimodule_validate_max_free_tags(&$element) {
  $threshold = $element['#maxlength'];
  $length = strlen($element['#value']);

  // I used the "greater than or equal" operator because the maxlength will
  // prevent the user from adding more characters.  If this value comes
  // from the web, this will generate an error if you reached exacly the max.
  // If you come from the drupal_execute(), this will allow you to specify
  // more characters.
  $exceeds_limit =  (bool)($length >= $threshold);

  if ($exceeds_limit) {
    $placeholders = array(
      '%threshold' => $threshold,
      '%field' => $element['#title'],
    );
    $message = t('You are not allowed to use %threshold characters or more in the field %field.', $placeholders);
    form_error($element,  $message);
  }
}

Installation Instructions as a new module

1. Create a folder for your new module. Normally sites/all/modules/custom/minimodule/
2. In that new folder create a minimodule.info (read documentation online to see how to do it)
3. Create a minimodule.module and paste the code above
4. Login as user 1 and go to admin/build/modules to enable this module

Installation Instructions in an existing module

1. Paste this code into your existing module.
2. Change the minimodule_ by whatever your module name is.
3. If your module already had a form_alter hook, copy only the content of mine in yours.

Configuration

If you need more (or less) than 1024, simply change the value in your variable table like this:

REPLACE INTO variable VALUES ('max_freetag_vocabulary', 'i:2048;');
TRUNCATE TABLE cache;

^{Warning: The SQL above might only work in MySQL. I do not know if progresql support REPLACE.
Truncating the cache table allow your new value to take effect.}

Would be great to have this in D6 also!
Greetings, Martijn

I've just had to do this in D6, and it just needs a slight change from the D5 version above:

<?php
/**
 * Extend the allowed length of lists of free terms.
 * This is code from drupal.org/node/157507 and should fix our issue 
 * #2165
 */

function taxonomy_length_extend_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {
    if (isset($form['taxonomy']['tags'][7])) {  // where 7 is the ID of the taxonomy you want to adjust
          $form['taxonomy']['tags'][7]['#maxlength'] = 2000;  // where 7 is the ID of the taxonomy you want to adjust
                                                                               // and you want to allow 2000 chrs instead of the default 255
            }
}

The limit isn't 255 in d6, it's like 1k. Something else was likely happening?

Confirmed, its 1024:

        $form['taxonomy']['tags'][$vocabulary->vid] = array('#type' => 'textfield',
          '#title' => $vocabulary->name,
          '#description' => $help,
          '#required' => $vocabulary->required,
          '#default_value' => $typed_string,
          '#autocomplete_path' => 'taxonomy/autocomplete/'. $vocabulary->vid,
          '#weight' => $vocabulary->weight,
          '#maxlength' => 1024,
        );

Its possible someone is trying to put more then 1k characters of tags but thats a lot of tags...

Going to go out on a limb and mark this WF. We don't support 5.x, there's a posted workaround, and it doesn't really exist in > 6.x.