I am looking to extend the max_execution_time on a Laravel development which is deployed to Digital Ocean via Laravel Forge. I have tried;

ini_set('max_execution_time', 300);

This did not work, I have also tried a .htaccess solution which didn't work and have updated the php.ini file within "/etc/php/7.0/php.ini" which hasn't had an effect, I am not sure if you need to restart the service after this but do not know how to do this?

The server is running Ubuntu 16.04.2 x64. Any help would be appreciated.