Nginx FastCGI caching with laravel blank page - php

Question

I am trying to implement nginx fastcgi caching with my laravel site but I'm getting a blank white page.
I've checked laravel's and nginx's logs and they show no errors or even access logs but the cache does get stored in the directory it's supposed to.
I have tried the same caching directives with a wordpress install on the same server which works flawlessly. I'm just wondering if there are specific nginx cache directives that need to be used for laravel and also if anyone can recommend a better alternative for caching for laravel.
here's my server conf:
fastcgi_cache_path /tmp/cache levels=1:2 keys_zone=MYAPP:100m inactive=60m;
fastcgi_cache_key "$scheme$request_method$host$request_uri";
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name site.com www.site.com;
root /var/www/site/public;
index index.php index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
set $no_cache 0;
charset utf-8;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
}
location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
location = /robots.txt { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
access_log off;
error_log /var/log/nginx/myapp-error.log error;
sendfile off;
client_max_body_size 100m;
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_cache MYAPP;
fastcgi_cache_valid 200 60m;
fastcgi_cache_methods GET HEAD;
add_header X-Fastcgi-Cache $upstream_cache_status;
fastcgi_cache_bypass $no_cache;
fastcgi_no_cache $no_cache;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_intercept_errors off;
fastcgi_buffer_size 16k;
fastcgi_buffers 4 16k;
}
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
}