include_path with separate virtualhosts doesn't work

in my apache server i have a bunch of virtualhost sections like: <virtualhost *> servername bob.domain.com documentroot /var/httpd/users/bob php_value include_path ".:/var/httpd/users/bob" </virtualhost> <virtualhost *> servername sally.domain.com documentroot /var/httpd/users/sally php_value include_path ".:/var/httpd/sally/bob" </virtualhost> and so on... currently there are 10 or more. however it seems like PHP decides which include path to use based on the first request to the particular apache child process. in other words, if there are 5 apache children, and bob visits bob.domain.com, the apache child that handles that request will ALWAYS use bob's include path. if sally then tries to visit her site, and she gets the apache child process that served bob's request, the include path will be bob's. any obvious things i can look at to try to fix this? here's some of the relevant config detail: PHP Version => 4.3.6 System => Linux c10-gs-dev1.cnet.com 2.4.20-28.7bigmem #1 SMP Thu Dec 18 11:04:21 EST 2003 i686 Configure Command => './configure' '--with-apxs2filter=/opt/apache2/bin/apxs' '--with-mysql=/opt/mysql' '--prefix=/opt/php' '--with-mcrypt=/opt' '--with-xslt-sablot=/opt' '--enable-xslt' '--enable-ftp' '--enable-mbstring=ja' '--enable-bcmath' '--with-aspell=/opt' '--with-pspell=/opt' Virtual Directory Support => disabled Configuration File (php.ini) Path => /opt/php/lib/php.ini PHP API => 20020918 PHP Extension => 20020429 Zend Extension => 20021010 Debug Build => no Thread Safety => disabled Registered PHP Streams => php, http, ftp