when apache is started whit option '-X' for single
process operation everything works well and settings 
in php.ini are read and take effect

but whenever apache is started for normal (multiprocess)
operation the contents of php.ini are ignored

the machine/file systems does not track access times
for 'ls -a' so i cannot veryfy whether the file is beeing 
read

when i compare phpinfo() output for both cases the only
differences are the values from php.ini and the port
number for the client connection, everything else
including apache environment is absolutely identical


configure line is:
'./configure' '--with-gd=/sw/i386_fbsd3/gd-1.7'              
'--with-apache=../apache-1.3.12'
'--enable-track-vars'                                 
'--with-config-file-path=/usr/local/lib/php-4.0/php.ini'
'--with-mysql=/sw/i386_fbsd3/mysql-3.22.25'
'--prefix=/sw/i386_fbsd3/apache-1.3.12'

php.ini contains only one line:
  max_execution_time = 60

(might be related to #6244, #6230 and #6166)