How to increase character limit from 500 to 5000 on Mastodon v.4.3.1

Well, after digging and trying and failing. I found a way to do this and wanted to share it with you. 

I found the 500 character limit by searching the mastodon code here

https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Amastodon%2Fmastodon%20500&type=code

and using another article saying to update another location as well here

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mastodon/comments/zyd34j/discussion_of_mastodons_character_limit_and/

Using that recipe I did this to put it into effect. Note, I didn't use any recompiling or any other mods (app?) just edit two lines and restart all mastodon services

login to your Mastodon server using SSH and private key. Change user to mastodon, edit two files. I used vim. Exit to root and restart mastodon services. Done. 

# change from your admin to the mastodon user

su -mastodon

vim live/app/javascript/mastodon/features/compose/containers/compose_form_container.js

# edit the next file. Look at line 31, go to the end, change from 500 to 5000

vim /home/mastodon/live/app/validators/status_length_validator.rb

# exit from the mastodon user and back to root or your admin

#restarting the mastodon services

systemctl restart mastodon

 

Refresh your page, (shift + F5) and you will see the number change from 500 to 5000. 

Happy Tooting.  🐘