CentOS - Oct 2020 - Centos 7 + PHP7.2 - variables_order not working

I've just moved my site onto a new box and I'm having a real problem? 
with $_REQUEST.? The variables_order? and request_order values are not 
being respected.

I need the cookies to take the lowest priority, so I put it first in the 
sequence. However, as the code below shows this is not happening.? 
Changing variables_order and request_order does not make any difference.

Anyone got any ideas why?? I've not seen this before.

PHP.ini settings

variables_order = "CGPS"
request_order = "CGPS"

The position of the 'C' seems to make no difference at all, but if I 
remove it then I get the expected response.


adoptions get
array(1) {
 ? ["adoptdate"]=>? string(10) "2020-10-26"
}

adoptions post
array(0) {
}

adoptions COOKIE
array(7) {
 ? ["login"]=>? string(1) "1"
 ? ["sesid"]=>? string(10) "1603798666"
 ? ["adoptdate"]=>? string(10) "2020-10-27"
}

adoptions REQUEST
array(7) {
 ? ["adoptdate"]=>? string(10) "2020-10-27"
 ? ["login"]=>? string(1) "1"
 ? ["sesid"]=>? string(10) "1603798666"
}

--On Tuesday, October 27, 2020 12:54 PM +0000 Gary Stainburn 
<gary.stainburn at ringways.co.uk> wrote:
> I've just moved my site onto a new box and I'm having a real
problem?
> with $_REQUEST.? The variables_order? and request_order values are not
> being respected.
I glanced at the documentation for that directive and there seems to be a 
lot of fine print and gotchas that affect how it's used:

<https://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.variables-order>