Eva Roddeck (Apr 02 2025 at 11:53): Eva Roddeck (Apr 02 2025 at 11:53):Hi everyone,
I hope this is the right channel, as I'm not troubleshooting per se, but looking for advice with a requirement.
We are running a dataverse instance in version v5.13. The research project whose data is stored in the dataverse is coming to an end. So we want to keep our users from uploading new data from a specific point in time forward. But the instance should be preserved in its current state. We would also like to preserve
user permissions and groups. Access and download of datasets should still be possible for all users.
Is there a way to make that feasible?
I thought of:
Is any of that possible in our used dataverse version, or can anyone think of a way to deactivate file upload without messing with the user permissions?
Thank you
Eva
Juan (Apr 02 2025 at 13:03):Hi @Eva Roddeck ,
I don't know a clean way of doing it. But perhaps you could:
Remove the edit / save dataset and dataverse buttons (changing a little bit the code).
To have more security and avoid modifications using the API:
Make the directory or file system where the files are stored read-only.
Philip Durbin 🚀 (Apr 02 2025 at 13:24):The tricky thing is that you want to preserve permissions. I say this because there's a handy "remove all roles" button in the "manage users" section of the superuser dashboard. :big_smile:
Eva Roddeck (Apr 02 2025 at 13:43):Philip Durbin ☀️ schrieb:
The tricky thing is that you want to preserve permissions. I say this because there's a handy "remove all roles" button in the "manage users" section of the superuser dashboard. :big_smile:
Yes, this is our plan B, in case it is not possible :) I wouldn't go as far as changing the code of our application.
Philip Durbin 🚀 (Apr 02 2025 at 13:46):Eva Roddeck said:
setting file upload size to 0KB (couldn't find a way to do that)
This should help: https://guides.dataverse.org/en/5.13/installation/config.html#maxfileuploadsizeinbytes
Eva Roddeck (Apr 02 2025 at 13:48):Thanks, I must have missed that, this setting should work!
Bethany Seeger (May 20 2026 at 14:50):I have a use case for this as well, for upgrade.
When we upgrade our dataverse, we do the following:
1) take a snapshot/copy of the current system
2) keep the current system online, with a banner and email telling people about the upgrade and not to add anything. This allows us to keep dataverse available, but does have the downside of "losing data" if someone does upload/update material while we are working on the snapshot.
3) upgrade the snapshot copy, and, when ready
4) switch the upgraded snapshot with the live system once complete.
if there was a way to switch a dataverse into "read-only" mode this could help keep dataverse maximally available during an upgrade and we'd not have to worry about users editing/adding anything during that timeframe.
We can also take the system offline for an upgrade, but it does seem nice to allow people to still access data while we are upgrading the system behind the scenes. Especially if things go wrong or the upgrade takes more time than anticipated.
Philip Durbin 🚀 (May 20 2026 at 14:58):I see. I'd have to check with @Leo Andreev but I'm pretty sure we don't let people access Harvard Dataverse when it's being upgraded.
Juan (May 20 2026 at 15:47):We have additional steps in our migration workflow, but we do not have many users with the right to update data:
0) We email all the users with right to upload data advising that the repository will not be available for uploads during the expected migration time and that some short downtimes in the service are also expected.
2.b) We remove the menu entry login commenting it in the xhtml code (although it could be bypassed by accessing the login page directly).
2.9) After that, we need to restart Payara, so the system is down for 1–2 minutes.
Last updated: May 30 2026 at 09:11 UTC