php session.save.path that is not from my ini file
Solved after further research (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19520744/what-is-the-difference-between-local-value-and-master-value)
The overriding setting was in /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf While that has comments that it is overridden by individual virtualhost directives, it appears that php.ini settings do not override. The problem vanished when I commented it out.