Support

Have you followed the documented instructions to address the OPcache issues on your server? If so, what exactly have you done?

The problem you describe is consistent with OPcache settings in need of updating. That's why I linked you to the documentation page where I have written which settings you need to change, what to change them to, and why.

Mostly yes. If you are using a .user.ini file there are two things to take into account. First, whether that file takes effect is up to your host. Second, it won't take effect for 5 to 10 minutes (your server caches it). If changes to this file don't work, ask your host how you can make these OPcache configuration changes to your site. Most hosting control panels give you some level of control for PHP options like that. It's different on each host, that's why I cannot give you specific instructions.

Uh, what they said is not accurate at all. You can of course change the OPcache settings on a shared hosting plan since the important configuration variables in question are user-configurable as per PHP's documentation. The configuration target for each of those settings is:

• opcache.validate_timestamps: INI_ALL
• opcache.revalidate_freq: INI_ALL
• opcache.enable_file_override: INI_SYSTEM
• opcache.revalidate_path: INI_ALL

The opcache.enable_file_override indeed has a configuration target of INI_SYSTEM (meaning: “Entry can be set in php.ini or httpd.conf”), but the rest have a configuration target of INI_ALL (meaning: “Entry can be set anywhere” i.e. using ini_set() as well as the php.ini, .htaccess, httpd.conf or .user.ini files).

The opcache.enable_file_override setting is just a precaution. It is NOT necessary to run Kickstart IF you have set up opcache.validate_timestamps to 1 (or true) AND opcache.revalidate_freq is set to something sufficiently low (e.g. 1) and opcache.revalidate_path is set to 1 (or true). These can be set up in a .user.ini file. The PHP documentation is slightly vague at this point, but the configuration target meaning is as follows:

Therefore, you need to create a .user.ini or php.ini file in your site's root with the following contents:

opcache.validate_timestamps=1
opcache.revalidate_freq=2
opcache.revalidate_path=1

The only question is, should you create a .user.ini file, or a php.ini file? This depends on how PHP is set up to run on the server. This is the part I do not and cannot know as it's up to the host to configure their server. The .user.ini files are used when PHP runs through PHP-FPM. The php.ini files are used when PHP runs as a CGI script.

If the host has instead chosen to run PHP as an Apache module (terribly insecure and inefficient!) you would need to create a .htaccess file in the parent directory of the web root with the following contents:

php_value opcache.validate_timestamps 1
php_value opcache.revalidate_freq 2
php_value opcache.revalidate_path 1

All your host has to tell you is how they run PHP on their server (PHP-FPM, CGI, or as an Apache module) so we can pick which method to use. Instead of doing that, they lied to you that PHP cannot be configured on a shared host which is simply not the case. Are you sure you spoke to someone who knows what they're doing? I have my doubts. It sounds like you spoke to some first level tech who had no idea what the heck they were talking about at all whatsoever.