The developer took my advice. All versions since 5.0 no longer have this problem.
You can change your max_input_vars setting back to the default value of 1000, and ACF will work fine with large field sets.
Since you are using the layout custom field, you should probably also take a look at this post…
php-input-variables-exceeded-1000
On complex field groups it is possible for the number of form variables submitted to exceed your web server’s maximum number of allowed variables per post. This happened to me on what seemed like a field group that wasn’t all that big. But once you start repeating layouts, the number of inputs can become quite large.
Until the developers start using a different method of saving data (like I suggested in my post) you will either have to change the configuration of your web server (not always possible on shared web hosting) or figure out a different way to do it.
Yes, I figured out later that the developers don’t really follow this forum, so I filled out a trouble ticket with my suggestion solution. The answer i got back was that the person answering the trouble ticket would pass my JSON data idea on to the developers.
I have the same error messages showing up on a web site I’m developing a plugin for. I do not have $acf in any of my code. It may be in one of the other plugins on the web site (it’s not mine to being making changes to).
However, I don’t think that “Do not use $acf for a variable name” is a fix.
The plugin developer should be using classes and namespaces to prevent other plugins from interfering with it’s operation.
