How to increase max_input_vars for phpMyAdmin

Introduction

When using phpMyAdmin to manage very large database tables you may encounter a message such as the following:

Warning: a form on this page has more than 10000 fields. 
On submission, some of the fields might be ignored, 
due to PHP's max_input_vars configuration.

This is in reference to the default max_input_vars value in phpMyAdmin's PHP configuration file:

# grep max_input_vars /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/php/73/etc/phpmyadmin/php.ini
max_input_vars = 10000

Procedure

Depending on the PHP version being used, the PHP configuration file for phpMyAdmin is found in the following path:

/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/php/*/etc/phpmyadmin/php.ini

To increase the max_input_vars value, modify the memory_limit line in the configuration file using your preferred text editor. It is recommended to increase this setting incrementally, for example, 10000, 20000, etc, as needed.

Note: For very large databases, it would be advisable to manage the database via the command line. Increasing PHP values far beyond the default configuration may cause phpMyAdmin to become unresponsive and introduce new errors.

After editing the php.ini file, you will need to restart the cPanel service:

/scripts/restartsrv_cpsrvd