How to Fix Laravel Routes Not Working on a Shared Host

Laravel is a leading framework that offers exceptional syntax. It’s the preferred framework by many developers. However, if you have just deployed your first Laravel project on a shared hosting server, you may eventually stumble upon a specific issue—your newly-added routes may not work. Laravel routes not working on live servers is a problem that definitely needs to be resolved as quickly as possible to make sure all your website pages are publicly available. In this post, we will provide possible solutions.

Table of Contents:

• Method 1: Clear Route Cache
• Method 2: Fix index.php and .htaccess Location
• Method 3: Create a Symbolic Link to public_html

Method 1: Clear Route Cache 

When you are deploying your Laravel application to production, you should typically take advantage of Laravel’s route cache. Using the route cache drastically decreases the amount of time it takes to register all of your application's routes. To generate a route cache, execute the route:cache Artisan command:

php artisan route:cache

After running this command, your cached routes file will be loaded on every request. Here is the moment to remember that if you add any new routes, you will have to generate a fresh route cache. That’s the reason for you to only run the route:cache command during your project's deployment.

If you stumble upon the issue of new routes not working, try using the route:clear command to clear the route cache:

php artisan route:clear

If that does not fix the issue, continue with the second method.

Method 2: Fix index.php and .htaccess Location

The index.php and .htaccess files locations have to be in the same folder. You need to do the following:

• Check where your index.php page is located;
• Check where your .htaccess file is located.

You need to find the .htaccess file. You can do this by using the cPanel File Manager or an FTP client such as FileZilla. For this example, we will use the File Manager. 

As we mentioned, the .htaccess file is by default. So, if you don’t see it in the File Manager, you need to go to Settings → Show Hidden Files → Save:

In case you still can’t find the .htaccess file after you’ve made hidden files visible, that means it hasn’t been generated. You can create any file by using your File Manager +File (New File) option at the top-left corner. In this case, you need a .htaccess file.

After making sure your index.php and .htaccess files are in the same directory, your Laravel routes should work properly on the FastComet shared server.

If this method does not work, we have a third option for you.

Method 3: Create a Symbolic Link to public_html

When both methods do not work for you, you should try creating a symbolic link from the public directory to the public_html directory. A symbolic link creation may sound complicated, but after going through the steps we provide, you will see that it’s a quick fix. Here is what you have to do:

• Rename the public_html folder to public_html_old or something similar. You are doing this to deactivate the directory instead of deleting it.
• Using SSH, implement the following command:

ln -s /home/user/laravel_project/public /home/user/public_html

Where user is your username and laravel_project is the name of the folder where your Laravel application is located. 

Contact us for Assistance

In case none of the methods in this post worked for you, feel free to contact our technical support experts via a support ticket. They will answer you swiftly and help you resolve the issue of Laravel routes not working on shared hosting. 

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