Laravel 5.5 email confirmation and model adjustments - php

Question

I'm using Laravel 5.5 and I want newly registered users to activate their account by confirming their email address. Also, I need some extra fields or name alterations on the existent Laravel User model. name is replaced by first_name and last_name.
I found out that Laravel manages most parts of the registration in the Auth/RegisterController and so I modified what I needed:
protected function validator(array $data)
{
return Validator::make($data, [
'name' => 'required|string|max:255',
'email' => 'required|string|email|max:255|unique:users',
'password' => 'required|string|min:12',
'first_name' => 'required|string|min:2',
'last_name' => 'required|string|min:2',
'terms' => 'accepted'
]);
}
The validator works fine, if I change the first_name min:n, it is correctly thereafter validated and shown to the user [the validation errors].
protected function create(array $data)
{
$user = User::create([
'first_name' => $data['first_name'],
'last_name' => $data['last_name'],
'email' => $data['email'],
'status' => 'inactive',
'password' => bcrypt($data['password']),
'api_token' => static::generateApiKey(),
]);
$activationLink = route('account.activation', static::generateRandomString());
Mail::to($user)->send(new UserAccountConfirmationMail($user, $data['password'], $activationLink));
return $user;
}
However, the creation (create(array $data)) does not work at all. I kind of feel like the code is not even executed (tried to add dd or Log::info('...') in order to find out whether or not it at all is executed) and nothing truly happens when I attempt to register. The page is sort of refreshed, however, no message on the user creation (if successful or not, ...), and subsequently no email in my box.
Am I missing out on some crucial detail here?

Answer 1

One of these days that you have spent hours on finding the errors has just finished. The validator, of which I thought was all fine because it was ordinarily displaying the errors, has been the turning point. I forgot to remove name from the validation. However, this validation error was never shown to me since I only caught these errors on display that I truly needed.
Solution:
return Validator::make($data, [
'email' => 'required|string|email|max:255|unique:users',
'password' => 'required|string|min:12',
'first_name' => 'required|string|min:2',
'last_name' => 'required|string|min:2',
'terms' => 'accepted'
]);