How come I need to completely restart my server whenever changing Laravel settings?

Nowhere on the internet have I seen anyone have this issue, but I pretty much can't change or add any config/package/vendor without restarting my entire Linux server.

Some simple examples:

• For Intervention image, I set the driver to Imagick in config/image, in the controller itself Image::configure(['driver' => 'imagick']), AND in the vendor file itself (/vendor/intervention/image/src/...). No matter what, it continued to try to use GD until I restarted the entire server.
• I installed the CloudConvert package with Composer, and added it to providers and facades. Nothing at all worked until a total reboot.

Before anyone asks, I've tried:

• php artisan cache:clear
• php artisan config:cache
• deleting the whole cache folder
• composer dump-autoload
• composer install
• composer update

All of the above did nothing at all. I still need to reboot everything. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

via Chebli Mohamed