Laravel App With Multiple Database Connections Defined Only Hits First Database - php

Question

I am trying to set up a Laravel (9.51) app that is a bundle of sites. All sites' user data is in one database, and each site has a database for its content. Using this article:
How to Use Multiple Database Connections in Laravel 8
And consulting the Laravel docs for Eloquent ORM, and this StackOverflow question:
How to use multiple databases in Laravel
I set up the two connections, set the $connection property in the model, and tried to save, and the app tries to save to the wrong database.
My code looks like this:
.env
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=dbaseone
DB_USERNAME=userone
DB_PASSWORD='my first password'
DB_CONNECTION_2=mysql
DB_HOST_2=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT_2=3306
DB_DATABASE_2=numbertwodbase
DB_USERNAME_2=seconduser
DB_PASSWORD_2='a different password'
config/database.php
'mysql' => [
'driver' => 'mysql',
'url' => env('DATABASE_URL'),
'host' => env('DB_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
'port' => env('DB_PORT', '3306'),
'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', 'forge'),
'username' => env('DB_USERNAME', 'forge'),
'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''),
'unix_socket' => env('DB_SOCKET', ''),
'charset' => 'utf8mb4',
'collation' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci',
'prefix' => '',
'prefix_indexes' => true,
'strict' => true,
'engine' => null,
'options' => extension_loaded('pdo_mysql') ? array_filter([
PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_CA => env('MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_CA'),
]) : [],
],
'mysql2' => [
'driver' => 'mysql',
'url' => env('DATABASE_URL'),
'host' => env('DB_HOST_2', '127.0.0.1'),
'port' => env('DB_PORT_2', '3306'),
'database' => env('DB_DATABASE_2', 'forge'),
'username' => env('DB_USERNAME_2', 'forge'),
'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD_2', ''),
'unix_socket' => env('DB_SOCKET', ''),
'charset' => 'utf8mb4',
'collation' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci',
'prefix' => '',
'prefix_indexes' => true,
'strict' => true,
'engine' => null,
'options' => extension_loaded('pdo_mysql') ? array_filter([
PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_CA => env('MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_CA'),
]) : [],
],
App/Models/User.php
class User extends Authenticatable implements MustVerifyEmail
{
use HasApiTokens, HasFactory, Notifiable, Billable;
protected $connection = 'mysql2';
And in a service called in my controller, I have this:
use App\Models\User;
. . .
public function newUser(array $props) {
$user = new User();
$user->name = $props['name'];
$user['email'] = $props['email'];
$user->password = Hash::make($props['password']);
if($user->save()) {
//listener sends verification email
event(new RegisteredUser($user, $props['return']));
//logs in for later use
Auth::login($user);
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
The result is this error message:
Illuminate\Database\QueryException
PHP 8.2.0
9.51.0
SQLSTATE[42S02]: Base table or view not found: 1146 Table 'dbaseone.users' doesn't exist
Table 'numbertwodbase.users' is the table the app should be trying to save to, and that table does exist.
Thank you
EDIT:
To answer StewieSWS question below, here is the relevant part of the config/auth.php file:
\
'providers' => [
'users' => [
'driver' => 'eloquent',
'model' => App\Models\User::class,
],
// 'users' => [
// 'driver' => 'database',
// 'table' => 'users',
// ],
],

Answer 1

I see, in that case, the error message "Base table or view not found: 1146 Table 'dbaseone.users' doesn't exist" indicates that the default database connection is being used instead of the specified connection.
One thing you could try is to specify the connection when creating the model, like this:
$user = (new User)->setConnection('mysql2')->create($data);
Because you have the configuration for the the second connection in your config file,you can use the DB::connection('mysql2') method to execute queries against the second database connection.
For example:
$user = DB::connection('mysql2')->table('my_table')->get();