A frequent call for help on the forums of moodle.org I have done it myself – you paste some code like javascript (or even that nasty MS Word code) into a topic summary, save it and discover you can’t then click on the edit icon anymore to go back and make alterations. I did a post earlier this year explaining how you can get into  the edit screen of a label if it’s a label that’s been corrupted – here it is – but the process for a topic summary is slightly different so I made a new screencast below. I stress: I am not a coder and so I don’t know any “correct” way of going about these things, but by trial and error (mainly the latter !) I have worked out how you can access the editing screen of your topic summary even though the pen and the hand icon is completely stuck. Watch the video below – if youtube is banned in your place as it is in mine, I have put step by step instructions underneath.

How to get into a topic summary when the icon is “stuck”:

• turn on the editing in your course
• click on the “hand and pen” icon of a topic summary that DOES work
• Go up to the url at the top of your screen – look at the number at the very end  in the address bar
• It will probably be something like http://YOURMOODLESITE.com/course/editsection.php?id=12
• The last number is the topic summary number that you are in at present. Type in different numbers near that one until you get to the topic summary that has been corrupted (don’t worry if you end up in a totally different course – just keep changing the number at the end until you get to your “broken” summary.) If you’re lucky it might only be a digit away. If you are even luckier and you only recently edited (broke!) the summary, its url might still be saved in your address bar.
• When you get to it, delete everything by clicking on the code view icon, rather than doing it in the WYSIWYG editor. Save changes – and you should then have a working topic summary with an edit icon you can click on.