PHP opcache preload is not loaded on Apache - php

Question

I'm using Apache/2.4.29 with PHP 7.4.5 as module.
Apache and PHP are configured with lito as user.
Virtualhost configuration with PHP settings:
php_admin_value opcache.enabled 1
php_admin_value opcache.preload /home/lito/www/preload.php
php_admin_value opcache.preload_user lito
phpinfo show opcache configuration:
opcache.enable On
opcache.preload /home/lito/www/preload.php
opcache.preload_user lito
No errors on apache log.
After apache restart opcache_get_status haven't any key related with preload status (preload_statistics) and there are only one script preloaded (current phpinfo.php):
Array
(
[opcache_enabled] => 1
[cache_full] =>
[restart_pending] =>
[restart_in_progress] =>
[memory_usage] => Array
(
[used_memory] => 9168872
[free_memory] => 125047784
[wasted_memory] => 1072
[current_wasted_percentage] => 0.00079870223999023
)
[interned_strings_usage] => Array
(
[buffer_size] => 6291008
[used_memory] => 522888
[free_memory] => 5768120
[number_of_strings] => 10969
)
[opcache_statistics] => Array
(
[num_cached_scripts] => 1
[num_cached_keys] => 1
[max_cached_keys] => 16229
[hits] => 1
[start_time] => 1587378881
[last_restart_time] => 0
[oom_restarts] => 0
[hash_restarts] => 0
[manual_restarts] => 0
[misses] => 3
[blacklist_misses] => 0
[blacklist_miss_ratio] => 0
[opcache_hit_rate] => 25
)
[scripts] => Array
(
[/home/lito/www/phpinfo.php] => Array
(
[full_path] => /home/lito/www/phpinfo.php
[hits] => 0
[memory_consumption] => 1040
[last_used] => Mon Apr 20 12:39:15 2020
[last_used_timestamp] => 1587379155
[timestamp] => 1587378955
)
)
)
Is not available opcache preload on Apache with PHP as module (without a custom php.ini)?
Thanks!
UPDATE: Tested adding preload file on /etc/php/7.4/apache2/php.ini and it works fine.

Answer 1

Similar (for nginx with php-fpm): https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=79043#1578412872
As far as I can tell, it looks like preloading is not in effect when configured this way.
Answer from PHP core dev:
yes, as preloading happens during early server startup, enabling it through php_admin_value does not work.