Disabling PHP 5.5.3 OPcache in MAMP

A student in my MCAD PHP and WordPress class ran into a curious issue where her changes to PHP scripts running in MAMP weren’t reflected when she refreshed the page in a browser, unless she opened the page in a new tab. Turns out OPcache is enabled by default in PHP 5.5.3 running in MAMP 2.2. Here’s a Stack Overflow post on how to disable it in your php.ini file.

The steps:

1. Find your php.ini file. In my MAMP installation it was located at: /Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php5.5.3/conf/php.ini.

2. Comment out the OPcache lines at the bottom by putting a semicolon in front:

   [OPcache]
   ;zend_extension="/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php5.5.3/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20121212/opcache.so"
   ;  opcache.memory_consumption=128
   ;  opcache.interned_strings_buffer=8
   ;  opcache.max_accelerated_files=4000
   ;  opcache.revalidate_freq=60
   ;  opcache.fast_shutdown=1
   ;  opcache.enable_cli=1

3. Stop and start your MAMP servers.