Turning off timestamp validation removes a stat call per file per request and means PHP never notices a changed file — so a deploy that does not reset the cache serves the previous release indefinitely.
opcache.validate_timestamps=0
opcache.memory_consumption=192
opcache.max_accelerated_files=20000
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=16
; and the deploy step that must exist alongside it:
; systemctl reload php7.2-fpm
; a graceful reload finishes in-flight requests and clears the cache.The reload rather than a restart is what avoids dropping connections. opcache_reset() from a web request only clears the cache for that pool and is unreliable with several workers, so it is not a substitute. max_accelerated_files being too low is a common silent problem — once it is full nothing else is cached and the setting reports itself only through opcache_get_status(), which is worth checking rather than assuming.