wait_timeout refuses to "take" (no replies)

Hi,

in /etc/my.cnf I have set wait_timeout = 50000

But after restarting mysql the default value is back at 28800

I HAVE been able to set other variables in /etc/my.cnf and see them show up after restarting mysql.


I even tried within mysql interactively, no joy:



mysql> set global wait_timeout = 50000;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> show variables like 'wait%';
+---------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+---------------+-------+
| wait_timeout | 28800 |
+---------------+-------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)



So .. what's up with this? I'm on 5.5.