I assume that MAMP environment variables can be set in ~/.bash_profile, but it seems that setting them there does not always take effect right away. For instance, I just set
I'm assuming you're talking about a local server?
I've noticed, if you look at the processes that apache can have multiple instance running that you might need to check. If they are, quit out of them individually, as the restart won't take the new changes until all instances are restarted. Something to try.