I am finding 2 places where session.cookie_lifetime is set.
Here:
; Lifetime in seconds of cookie or, if 0, until browser is restarted.
session.cookie_lifetime = 36000
and here
; Document expires after n minutes.
session.cookie_lifetime = 36000
Do they both have to be the same value? Why is this set in two places? It is pretty confusing the way it is.
The default php.ini does not contain two of these directives.
Something has added the second to your INI file. It overrides the first, making the first redundant.