Laravel: Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes

The Problem: "Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes"

One of these issues you might stumble across using the PHP framework Laravel is this one:

Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes

After some research, I've found out it's coming up when using older versions of MySQL (prior to 5.7.8) or MariaDB (prior to 10.2.2). It was MariaDB in my case.

Solution #1:

In Laravel this can be resolved simply by changing your app service provider configuration (in app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php) with the following:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

public function boot()
{
    /**
     * Ensure we aren't running into `Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes`
     *
     * @see https://peterthaleikis.com/posts/laravel:-specified-key-was-too-long-max-key-length-is-767-bytes/
     **/
    Schema::defaultStringLength(191);
}

After this you might need to rebuild your database using php artisan migrate:fresh --seed - this will completely reset your database and start off fresh.

Solution #2:

You can also upgrade your database server. This hasn't been discussed here as it is very system-specific. DuckDuckGo is your friend 💪️