File Upload size limit

Sorry for bringing up an old problem, (there seem to be many articles in the archives already) but I couldn't find the solution there so here is my version of the problem ;-) I am running php 4.2.2 on a virtual host, so I have no access to php.ini. But I can use the apache directives in .htaccess which has worked well for me so far. So i have the following directives in the .htaccess in the directory where the relevant upload script is located: php_value memory_limit 34M php_value post_max_size 33M php_value upload_max_filesize 32M php_value max_execution_time 600 So I have memory_limit > post_max_size > upload_max_filesize experimentation shows that uploads greater than 8M bomb out. So I check phpinfo() and guess what? It reports post_max_size = 8M. The other 3 config settings have been changed correctly from their master (default) values. but for some reason the post_max_size 33M has been ignored. I know that some priviledges are required to be able to change these settings via .htaccess (namely "AllowOverride Options" or "AllowOverride All" privileges) but i thought that these applied to all the settings. So since I can change the first three why not the last one? Can my host stop me from changing a single config? If so how, and what do they need to change so I can get post_max_size = 33M? Or have i missed something really really stupid? Thanks very much in advance Oliver