Laravel DotEnv not reading server environment variables

Question

I'm trying to get a Laravel app working in an automated deployment setup.

Everything deploys fine, but I get the following 500 hundred error.

IlluminateEncryptionMissingAppKeyException: No application encryption key has been specified.

Now, there is no .env file but the variables are all defined already on the server. If I ssh into my server and type env I can see APP_KEY in the list with the right value, but my Laravel app can not see it.

I have tried refreshing caches etc, but still, it doesn't work.

Can Laravel not use server environment variables?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65885506/laravel-dotenv-not-reading-server-environment-variables

Answer 1

if APP_KEY already in .env, may you run php artisan config:cache.