java – Eclipse 4.23 not applying changes from .ini file after editing while running

I’m using Eclipse 4.23, and I noticed something odd with how it handles changes to the eclipse.ini file:

If I modify the .ini file while Eclipse is running, the changes are not applied even if I restart or stop and start Eclipse afterwards. This is also reflected in the "About > Installation Details > Configuration" section—my edits don’t show up.

However, if I close Eclipse first, then edit and save the .ini file, the changes are applied correctly when I relaunch Eclipse.

Is this expected behaviour in Eclipse 4.23? Is there a caching mechanism or something else that prevents changes made during runtime from being picked up after a restart?

Any clarification would be appreciated.

I tested this behaviour on my other machine using Eclipse 4.23. I modified the eclipse.ini file in two scenarios:

With Eclipse shut down, changes (like updated VM arguments) were applied correctly to the next launch, as expected. They also showed up under About > Installation Details > Configuration.

With Eclipse running: I saved changes to the .ini file, then restarted Eclipse. In my case, the changes were still applied correctly.

However, this behaviour isn’t consistent across all users. For some colleagues, editing the .ini file while Eclipse is running results in the changes not being applied after restart. In those cases, Eclipse seems to ignore the updated file entirely unless it was shut down before the edit.

We’re all using Eclipse 4.23 with similar configurations. File permissions and save operations were verified, so that doesn’t seem to be the cause.

We’re trying to figure out if Eclipse does any caching of .ini values during runtime or if OS-level factors (e.g., file locks, user permissions) could explain the difference in behaviour between users.

Is this a known issue, or is there an explanation for why this would be inconsistent across machines?