My webhost just upgraded my server from PHP 5.3 to 5.5. I lost the custom php.ini file I had been using. Something in that file was forcing sessions to last a long time, and I can't figure out what it was. I want it back. Now every user times out after 24 minutes, which is costing me a ton of sales, because of the nature of my site is such that users often take hours or days to purchase.

I tried switching my PHP version back to 5.3 and using a .user.ini file with the below value. I ran a phpinfo and I see that this is set to 172800 as the "local" value, but the "master" value is 1440.

Code:
session.gc_maxlifetime = 172800
Is the problem that the "master" value is 1440? Is there another setting I need to change?