changes in my.cnf not taking effect? max_allowed_packet prob

[psychomachine]

hi.

i'm trying to execute a large sql script (2MB), and I'm getting a max_allowed_packet error. which makes sense.

so I changed the value of max_allowed_packet to 8M in my.conf, but now when i do

show session variables

the value displayed is

1048576

why is the change not taking effect? is there anything else i can do? i'm still getting the same error when i try to execute the script.

all best,
psych