Normally there are two php.ini’s in your system, one for CLI (command-line) and one for the web server.
SuiteCRM uses the CLI for the cron jobs, if you set them up that way, and this affects deferred email sending (campaigns, reminders, etc) and workflows and a bunch of other things from the Scheduler jobs.
SuiteCRM uses the Web server for everything else you do from the UI.
You have probably been changing things for the CLI, try finding out your PHP configuration for web server. One way to do this is to get phpinfo from Admin / Diagnostics.