PHP 5.2, Ubuntu 10.04 Truncates External Input Variables

Question

Why does PHP 5.2 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS truncate long $_POST (external input) values, like the max_input_vars directive does in PHP 5.3?

I am supporting an old e-commerce site (that is soon to be replaced) and after recently updating, the admin could no longer fully edit a product due to the having over 1000 input vars.

(PHP 5.2 was installed using the Zend Server Community Edition)

Answer 1

I searched and debugged for quite a while to find out that is was the max_input_vars directive. But, officially, there is no max_input_vars directive in PHP 5.2, according to this.

I finally found that it was back-ported here.

Updating/adding the directive solved the problem.

I hope this helps save someone else the headache of tracking this down.