Unwanted Table Creation Issue: Laravel 11 Crashes App

Troubleshooting Laravel Migration Issues: Missing Session Table

Recently while updating my project to Laravel 11, I found myself in a challenging situation that initially stumped me. I had decided to delete all the existing migrations and removed my database entirely with the hope of starting afresh. This might seem drastic, but at that moment it seemed like a clean slate was what I needed. Nonetheless, after setting up my new database and migrations, I faced an unexpected error that stopped me in my tracks.

Upon trying to migrate or even run my Laravel application, I encountered the following error:

“`

SQLSTATE[42S02]: Base table or view not found: 1146 Table ‘mydatabase.sessions’ doesn’t exist

“`

This error was perplexing because I hadn’t explicitly created a sessions table in any of my new migrations. So, why was Laravel looking for a sessions table in the first place?

This issue is rooted in Laravel’s session handling. By default, Laravel is configured to use the file driver for session storage, but configurations could vary based on how the environment is set up or previous configurations that were mistakenly left unchanged. If in the .env file or the session configuration file (config/session.php), the session driver is set to database, Laravel expects a sessions table to exist in your database. This table is used to store session data for users, and without it, the application will indeed throw an error when it tries to write session information.

Here are the steps I took to resolve the issue:

1. Check Environment Settings:

First, I checked my .env file for the SESSION_DRIVER setting. True enough, it was set to database. This environment setting was why Laravel was attempting to store session data in a non-existent table.

1. Update the .env File:

To quickly get my application running, I changed the setting in the .env file from database to file. This alteration tells Laravel to manage session data using files instead of a database, thereby bypassing the need for a sessions table.

SESSION_DRIVER=file

1. Running Default Sessions Migration:

If you prefer using the database for sessions due to its advantages in certain production environments (like load-balanced configurations), you need to run the default Laravel session table migration. Unfortunately, since I had deleted all existing migrations earlier, I needed to reintroduce this migration.

Laravel provides an artisan command to generate a session table migration:

php artisan session:table

This command creates a new migration file in the database/migrations directory that will set up the sessions table when php artisan migrate is run.

1. Migration Execution:

After generating the migration file, I ran php artisan migrate to create the sessions table in my database. With the table now correctly set up, the application started up without any further issues related to sessions.

This was a valuable reminder that even with a fresh start, certain configurations and defaults assumed by frameworks like Laravel can lead to unexpected outcomes. Always check and double-check configuration files and environment settings when setting up or modifying your application, especially if you’re repurposing older configurations in new environments. This experience reinforced the importance of closely managing configuration details, especially when undertaking significant framework upgrades or restructurings.