martinvelikov

Hey @alittledev,

Martin from SiteGround here.

I will use this opportunity for a short followup ??

As @generosus mentioned, our team was contacted regarding this matter. I provided somewhat more detailed information in the communication we had through our official support channels. I will spare some details in this public thread but here it is, without omitting anything important:

• this file /var/lib/sec/wp-settings.php adds additional functionality for the SiteGround managed hosting for WordPress
• it is used for various features, one of them being the custom dashboard SiteGround ships along with the “SiteGround starter”
  • the SiteGround starter itself allows clients that perform new installations to more easily start building their websites with preinstalled plugins, themes and overall website setup relevant to the needs they have
• due to a bug in the code that was shipped in the end of last week, instead of preserving user preferences for the default dashboard the options that are modified in the custom SiteGround starter dashboard were hidden.
• it was not expected, it was a regression in the code for the shipped version
• the issue was rectified yesterday by the SiteGround team and distributed across the hosting infrastructure

To answer your question why there was no announcement: The change was not supposed to affect existing customers in a way that it changes the expected functionality of their websites. More of a under the hood type of tweaking. Still @generosus made a very nice comment also, suggesting we consider putting up a website that would provide regular updates for new features, up to date service status and similar announcements for clients.

On SiteGround servers you can easily modify PHP variables(using a local php.ini file or directly via the control panel -> PHP Variables tool) and there is no need to explicitly contact the host for it. If one is using PHP 7.* for a website and a plugin or theme requires higher opcache settings values as described above, those can be adjusted by the website owner.