How to force reloading php.ini file?

Question

I configured a web server last week, it worked fine.

Today I request its homepage, I see a timezone error, as it should be configured into my php.ini file.

I try a phpinfo(); on my webserver, it gives me:

Configuration File (php.ini) Path   /opt/rrh/php/lib  

But no php.ini file loaded.

I investigate, the php file exists and has very large permissions:

 ls -la /opt/rrh/php/lib     -rwxrwxrwx  1 apache root 68448 Nov 22 10:10 php.ini 

I try a parse_ini_file("/opt/rrh/php/lib/php.ini"));, it returns no error...

Of course I restart my server a dozen of time.

What can I do more to resolve my problem?

My system:

1. Redhat 6
2. Apache 2.4
3. PHP 5.5.19 with libphp5.so apache module

Answer 1

To force a reload of the php.ini you should restart apache.

Try sudo service apache2 restart from the command line. Or sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Answer 2

TL;DR; If you're still having trouble after restarting apache or nginx, also try restarting the php-fpm service.

The answers here don't always satisfy the requirement to force a reload of the php.ini file. On numerous occasions I've taken these steps to be rewarded with no update, only to find the solution I need after also restarting the php-fpm service. So if restarting apache or nginx doesn't trigger a php.ini update although you know the files are updated, try restarting php-fpm as well.

To restart the service:

Note: prepend sudo if not root

Using SysV Init scripts directly:

/etc/init.d/php-fpm restart        # typical /etc/init.d/php5-fpm restart       # debian-style /etc/init.d/php7.0-fpm restart     # debian-style PHP 7 

Using service wrapper script

service php-fpm restart        # typical service php5-fpm restart       # debian-style service php7.0-fpm restart.    # debian-style PHP 7 

Using Upstart (e.g. ubuntu):

restart php7.0-fpm         # typical (ubuntu is debian-based) PHP 7 restart php5-fpm           # typical (ubuntu is debian-based) restart php-fpm            # uncommon 

Using systemd (newer servers):

systemctl restart php-fpm.service        # typical systemctl restart php5-fpm.service       # uncommon systemctl restart php7.0-fpm.service     # uncommon PHP 7 

Or whatever the equivalent is on your system.

The above commands taken directly from this server fault answer