Queue Runs in Sync Mode Despite QUEUE_CONNECTION=database in .env

Queue Runs in Sync Mode Despite QUEUE_CONNECTION=database in .env

Sometimes after switching your queue connection from sync to database, jobs still run synchronously — or nothing works as expected.

The culprit is usually Laravel's configuration cache.

Even if your .env is correct:

QUEUE_CONNECTION=database

Laravel may still be reading a stale cached config.

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✅ Fix

Run these two commands:

php artisan config:clear
php artisan queue:restart

• config:clear — removes the cached configuration so Laravel reads your .env fresh
• queue:restart — signals running queue workers to restart and pick up the new config

After that, your queue should correctly use the database driver. 🚀

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Happy coding!