max_input_vars in php.ini not updating after change

Question

To keep it clear I'll give as much info as I can to solve this issue.

I tried importing a database today and got the message that my max_input_vars was on 1000 and it needed to be upped in php.ini .

I changed it to many numbers starting from 2000 up to 10000 . But everytime I changed it it would not update the max_input_vars and would keep giving me the same error.

I tried restarting the server and looking around the internet but could not find a fix. I hope someone here can help me out with this problem.

Answer 1

Three things you might have overlooked:

1. Check phpinfo(); to make sure you're editing the right php.ini file.
2. If you've never updated that parameter, it's probably commented out like this:

; max_input_vars = 1000

So make sure you remove this sneaky semicolon at the beginning of the line.

3. Don't forget to restart your web server.

Answer 2

Please check if PHP is running as a service (for example php-fpm). In my case I needed to run:

service php-fpm reload

Answer 3

1. Run phpinfo().

2. Look at the table rows almost at the top of the page

   • "Loaded Configuration File"

   • "Scan this dir for additional .ini files"

   • "Additional .ini files parsed"

     and this one about 5 screens from the top

   • "user_ini.filename" (see manual page )

3. Among these .ini files (specified in these rows of phpinfo() output), find containing "max_input_vars" (without quotation marks).

Think, analyze...

In my case it was a Docksal issue "Can't override php.ini..." , I created the second file of these two...

• .docksal/etc/php/php.ini
• .docksal/etc/php/php-fpm.conf

...and got the desired max_input_vars value!