Note: You are currently viewing documentation for Moodle 3.6. Up-to-date documentation for the latest stable version of Moodle is likely available here: Context freezing.

Context freezing

From MoodleDocs

New feature
in Moodle 3.6!

Context freezing, an experimental feature in Moodle 3.6, activated from Development/Experimental settings, allows administrators or those with the relevant capability to make categories, blocks, courses or course content 'read-only', that is, preventing users from modifying or adding to the content.


  • Administrators can always modify frozen content, unless the setting 'Context freezing applies to administrators' is enabled, from Development/Experimental settings.
  • Regular users may be given the capability moodle/site:manage context locks in certain contexts, meaning, for example, teachers may lock whole courses once they are over, or they may close forums when discussions are to be ended.

Note: There are currently some unexpected behaviours since this is still an experimental feature. These will be addressed in later releases. These include:

  • the possibility still to duplicate activities even when they are frozen
  • the possibility to move and hide frozen blocks
  • no possibility of unfreezing a label because its settings are not available in Boost.

For more information, see the discussion in MDLQA-12872.