Troubleshooting

When an artisan command fails, the extension reads the output before showing it to you. With the package 3.9 or later, a generation answers with an error code, which the extension reads instead. If it recognizes the failure, the notification names the actual cause and carries one-click fixes such as opening .env, running the missing command in a terminal or jumping to your stubs. This page covers the same cases for when you want to understand or fix things yourself.

PHP is not found

The extension calls php from your PATH. If VS Code cannot find it, or picks the wrong install, set an explicit path:

{ "laravelApiGenerator.phpPath": "C:/laragon/bin/php/php-8.3/php.exe" }

Herd, Valet, Laragon and XAMPP each bundle their own PHP; point the setting at the one your project runs on. Herd's php.bat on Windows works as it is, from the PATH or from this setting.

PHP runs in Sail or Docker

When PHP only exists inside a container, give the extension the whole command instead of a path. Each item of the array is one argument.

Sail

{ "laravelApiGenerator.phpCommand": ["./vendor/bin/sail", "php"] }

Docker Compose

{ "laravelApiGenerator.phpCommand": ["docker", "compose", "exec", "-T", "app", "php"] }

Replace app with the name of your PHP service. If PHP is missing on the machine and the project ships Sail, the builder preview offers this setting in one click.

The preview is unavailable

The preview needs the package installed in vendor/, in a version recent enough to answer it, and a Laravel app that boots. The panel names the missing piece and offers the command that fixes it. If the app itself fails to start, the message shows the end of the PHP error, and the same error would stop a generation. Lines that the app prints on its own while booting land in the Laravel API Generator output channel.

No artisan file

"Could not open input file: artisan" means the opened folder is not the Laravel root. Open the folder that contains artisan; the extension also finds it up to two levels deep for monorepos.

make:fullapi is not defined

Artisan only knows the command once the Composer package is installed:

composer require --dev nameless/laravel-api-generator

The extension detects the missing package and offers this install itself. It is a dev dependency: nothing from it runs in production and the generated code does not depend on it.

Database errors

The generator touches your database when importing tables, migrating or seeding. The classic failures:

Message	Cause and fix
SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002], Connection refused	The server is down or .env points at the wrong host or port.
SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045], Access denied	Wrong DB_USERNAME or DB_PASSWORD.
could not find driver	The PHP driver extension is disabled. Enable pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql or pdo_sqlite in php.ini.
Database file does not exist	SQLite needs the file to exist. Create an empty database/database.sqlite.
Unknown database	Create the database itself, then re-run the migrations.

If you edited .env and nothing changes, clear the cached config with php artisan config:clear.

Migration conflicts

A missing migrations table means the database was never initialized; the extension proposes php artisan migrate:install. A "Table already exists" error means a previous run left tables behind:

php artisan migrate:fresh

WARNING

migrate:fresh drops every table and replays all migrations. Perfect on a dev database, destructive anywhere else.

A customized stub breaks generation

Generation validates published stubs before writing a single file, and names any stub that lost a required placeholder or was written for 3.x, with the reason. Fix the placeholder, or reset from the builder with Customize Stubs then Reset to Defaults.

Permission denied

The generator writes into app/, database/, routes/ and tests/. "Permission denied" or EACCES means your user cannot write there, which mostly happens in Docker or WSL setups where the project belongs to another user. Fix the ownership of the project folder and re-run.

The UI is in the wrong language

The extension follows the VS Code display language. Override it with the laravelApiGenerator.locale setting, en or fr.