Magento 1.6 does not seem to be using APC - magento

Question

I am using Magento 1.6 with APC 3.1.9.
I am getting 99% miss and only 0.4% hit.
Magento local.xml has this entry
<config>
<global>
<cache>
<backend>apc</backend>
<prefix>MAGE_</prefix>
</cache>
......
.....
I have tweaked most of the params in apc.ini as per the Magento forums.
When i run,
php -r 'phpinfo();' | grep 'apc'
output is
additional .ini files parsed => /etc/php.d/apc.ini,
apc
apc.cache_by_default => On => On
apc.canonicalize => On => On
apc.coredump_unmap => Off => Off
apc.enable_cli => On => On
apc.enabled => On => On
apc.file_md5 => Off => Off
apc.file_update_protection => 2 => 2
apc.filters => no value => no value
apc.gc_ttl => 3600 => 3600
apc.include_once_override => Off => Off
apc.lazy_classes => Off => Off
apc.lazy_functions => Off => Off
apc.max_file_size => 20M => 20M
apc.mmap_file_mask => no value => no value
apc.num_files_hint => 10000 => 10000
apc.preload_path => no value => no value
apc.report_autofilter => Off => Off
apc.rfc1867 => Off => Off
apc.rfc1867_freq => 0 => 0
apc.rfc1867_name => APC_UPLOAD_PROGRESS => APC_UPLOAD_PROGRESS
apc.rfc1867_prefix => upload_ => upload_
apc.rfc1867_ttl => 3600 => 3600
apc.serializer => default => default
apc.shm_segments => 1 => 1
apc.shm_size => 1024M => 1024M
apc.slam_defense => On => On
apc.stat => On => On
apc.stat_ctime => Off => Off
apc.ttl => 0 => 0
apc.use_request_time => On => On
apc.user_entries_hint => 10000 => 10000
apc.user_ttl => 0 => 0
apc.write_lock => On => On
Not sure how to debug this issue and resolve the 99%cache miss.
What have I missed?
Please help.

Answer 1

make sure that you did a rm -rf /var/www/var/cache/* after changing local.xml.
try to optimizing your apc cache
http://blog.nexcess.net/2011/03/25/optimizing-apc-cache-settings-for-magento/
and make sure that you check
Additional Advice for APC configuration:
turn off apc.optimization (experimental and unstable, may cache user
session info, useless items which should not be cached, such as
admin pages and logged-in site pages)
turn off apc.include_once_override
turn off apc.slam_defense (may cause objects to be replaced with PHP
warnings which are displayed to the user)
set apc.user_ttl = 0 (allows your php scripts to set appropriate
timeouts for queries and objects)
set apc.mmap_file_mask = /tmp/apc-yourusernamehere.XXXXXX for
file-backed mmap; make file mask unique by adding your unique
string; XXXXXX (exactly 6 X’s) must remain to allow APC to add
random string OR set to /dev/zero for anonymous mmap if you can
spare the memory
source : http://blog.magikcommerce.com/configuring-apc-cache-for-faster-magento/