Laravel 5 localhost installation not working - php

Question

I just installed Laravel 5 in my local environment on Mac Yosemite. I've set up Laravel in a directory and then created an Apache Virtual Host to point to that directory.
The root of the project can now successfully be accessed by visiting http://myproject.localhost.com. However, I don't see the Laravel welcome screen. Instead, I just see a blank white page, and I can't figure out why.
Chrome is showing a 500 Internal Server error when it tries to load the domain. The same thing happens if I try to access the index.php file directly: http://myproject.localhost.com/index.php.
I wanted to look in the Laravel error log to see what the issue is, but that left me even more confused because the store/logs directory is empty.
I know the virtual host setup is correct because when I point the virtual host to another project, that does not use Laravel, it works correctly. Also, I was previously receiving permission errors from the vendor directory, which I resolved. I thought that was the last issue that needed to be fixed before the welcome page would load correctly, but to my surprise, I only see a blank screen.
Has anyone experienced this before? Is there any more information I can provide to help solve this?
Here is my virtual host configuration:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster#slopes.localhost.com
DocumentRoot "/Users/myusername/dev/slopes/public"
ServerName slopes.localhost.com
ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/slopes.localhost.com-error_log"
CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/slopes.localhost.com-access_log" common
<Directory "/Users/myusername/dev/slopes/public">
Require all granted
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
When I try to access index.php in the browser, I see the request in /private/var/log/apache2/slopes.localhost.com-access_log, and it shows a 500 response. It produces no entries in /private/var/log/apache2/slopes.localhost.com-error_log.

Answer 1

I just did the same thing (also Yosemite) and here's the solution to my issue, maybe it is yours too.
Edit the public/.htaccess, comment the following lines:
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
Options -MultiViews
</IfModule>
to
#<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
# Options -MultiViews
#</IfModule>
Check if it works.
Edit: Check your httpd-vhosts.conf file, does it looks something like this?
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin you
ServerName www.myproject.localhost.com
ServerAlias myproject.localhost.com
DocumentRoot "/path/to/webfolder/laravel/public"
ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host2.example.com-error_log"
CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host2.example.com-access_log" common
</VirtualHost>
Check your ErrorLog, if you don't have it, add it, something must be there since the 500 is being throwed by Apache. Also, double check you're pointing the root to the public/ folder
EDIT: After chatting (https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/73694), #Kyslik figured out it was the lack of the mcrypt extension, guided a new php and mcrypt install through brew. Then permission to storage/ and it worked.