When a user-level setting is specified in the wrong place, the server won't start and an exception message is sent to the log. However, you can tell ClickHouse to ignore the incorrect setting using the skip_check_for_incorrect_settings setting:
Add the following to config.xml:
<skip_check_for_incorrect_settings>1</skip_check_for_incorrect_settings>
Note
User-level settings should be specified in users.xml inside a <profile> section for the specific user profile, (or in <default> for default settings.