Laravel projects stopped suddenly – CPanel

Before you continue to read – the issue has been fixed

Well… this is kinda weird.

I’m working on a web app for some friends. I have a working version uploaded to their hosting, and, suddenly, it stopped working a couple of days ago.

I haven’t added anything or changed anything on the server. There is no error, simply the app stopped loading and a blank html page is loaded instead.

I’ve traced the problem until /vendor/composer/autoload_real.php file.

In the end of the static class inside this file, there is a loop where several other files are being included (actually requested), I’ve checked that when it tries to request /vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/helpers.php, the system stops. Obviously, I’ve checked that the file is there, and it isn’t been touched.

Well, I’m positive I’ve didn’t changed anything on this part of the app (it’s core framework, and I usually don’t mess up inside), but just of a sudden it stopped working.

The working copy on my computer just works fine. I’ve uploaded my copy of helpers.php, but nothing changed.

Anyone had experienced similar issues recently? Anyone has any idea about how to fix it?

EDIT: It’s been several days since I could check on this for the last time.
Now I’ve been tracing raw php execution on /vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/helpers.php file. This is, I’ve started echoing messages and trying to execute just this file, to see where code execution is stopped.

I know this is very crappy debugging, but I haven’t access to apache nor I can restart it, and it seems there is no easy way to get an error code without this.

So patiently trying I’ve reached two points where execution stops on this file:

Creation of factory method

if (! function_exists('factory')) {
    /**
     * Create a model factory builder for a given class, name, and amount.
     *
     * @param  dynamic  class|class,name|class,amount|class,name,amount
     * @return IlluminateDatabaseEloquentFactoryBuilder
     */
    function factory()
    {
        $factory = app(EloquentFactory::class);

        $arguments = func_get_args();

        if (isset($arguments[1]) && is_string($arguments[1])) {
            return $factory->of($arguments[0], $arguments[1])->times($arguments[2] ?? null);
        } elseif (isset($arguments[1])) {
            return $factory->of($arguments[0])->times($arguments[1]);
        }

        return $factory->of($arguments[0]);
    }
}

and creation of mix method

if (! function_exists('mix')) {
    /**
     * Get the path to a versioned Mix file.
     *
     * @param  string  $path
     * @param  string  $manifestDirectory
     * @return IlluminateSupportHtmlString|string
     *
     * @throws Exception
     */
    function mix($path, $manifestDirectory = '')
    {
        return app(Mix::class)(...func_get_args());
    }
}

In both cases func_get_args is involved… I haven’t a specific error, but I have the tingling that the problem is related somewhat to the fact that this function isn’t returning anything.

EDIT2: Ok, I tried php artisan and composer commands suggested on answers to no success. The issue is still there.

I’ve also deleted the logs and checked that no new log was created while trying to load the site.

I’ve tried a clean laravel install from scriptaculous on a new directory (I’ve done this when I first uploaded the site, it worked perfectly for several months) and this new install doesn’t reach the front page neither. A blank page (on Firefox) or a 500 error (on Chrome) is shown instead.

I forgot to mention an important data. My app is sharing space with a wordpress instance. The wordpress is installed on public_html, and my site on public_html/mySiteDirectory. This hasn’t supposed any problem so far more than make me tweak lightly .htaccess file to make routing work fine.

There is also a phpbb forum sharing space on it’s own directory inside public_html.

I wonder if any of those could have somewhat been upgraded and produced this strange outcome.

Also… laravel app_debug is enabled on .env file since the beginning, but never showed anything. This seems to be something that fails before laravel framework is fully loaded.

EDIT 3: IT’S FIXED.

Well… first of all, let me thank you all for your help. Actually there wasn’t one answer that fixed the problem, but many of you suggested to use phpInfo() to check php version which ultimately led to the true problem.

Yes… surprisingly, although php -v on terminal showed php 7.2 running on server, and cpanel php management tools showed also php 7.2 installed and running, when I used phpInfo(); php 5.6 was showed on the response.

I used the own cpanel tools to make an upgrade/downgrade to 7.3 and again to 7.2 and et voilá phpInfo(); shows 7.2 and the page is again up and running.

I’ll try to share the reward between several answers (don’t know if something like that is even possible), and will +1 every answer suggesting phpInfo(); as it showed as the key to fixing this problem.

If I cannot share the reward I’ll accept as final answer the one from Don’t Panic, as it was the one that convinced me that there was a problem with php versions.