Php.ini production vs development

First, make sure you're editing php.ini, not php-development.ini or php-production.ini or anything BUT php.ini. After that, ensure you restart your Apache server or your changes won't take effect.

Also, check out ini_set for setting ini values at runtime.

As of PHP 7 the regular php.ini file was removed and added with php.ini-production and php.ini-devlopment. In PHP's installation text file they state, "We advise you to use php.ini-production, because we optimized the default settings in this file for performance, and security."

So in short use the php.ini-production