Sorry to jump in; just a few weeks ago I was successful in modifying the max_chars variable by enabling recovery mode and then modifying the relevant file in the web terminal. or so i think - i might be misremembering what i did, though at the time i didn't think much of it.
now, when i try to do the same thing again to up my character limit a bit more... any changes i make seem to revert. even after putting it in recovery mode and making changes, surprisingly.
has there been a change in the last few weeks to patch things to make it more resilient against user modifications like this? or am i possibly misremembering the process i went through?