Fixing Real-Time Notification Issues Using Vue, Laravel, and Socket.IO

#vue #laravel #websocket #javascript

Real-time notifications are a core feature in many modern applications.

Recently, while working on a Vue + Laravel application, I faced multiple issues with Socket.IO-based notifications that worked fine locally but caused problems in production.

In this post, I’ll explain what went wrong, how I fixed it, and the lessons I learned.

🔔 The Problem

We implemented real-time notifications using Socket.IO so users could instantly receive updates (events, alerts, system messages).

Issues we faced:

Notifications randomly stopped arriving
Duplicate notifications after page refresh
Users stayed “connected” but didn’t receive messages
Everything worked locally, but production was unstable

This caused confusion and reduced trust in the system.

🧰 Tech Stack

Frontend: Vue.js
Backend: Laravel
WebSocket: Socket.IO
Auth: Token-based authentication
Server: Nginx + Production environment

🔍 Root Cause Analysis

After debugging both frontend and backend, the main issues were:

WebSocket connections were created multiple times
Event listeners were not cleaned up
Users were not mapped correctly to socket connections
Idle connections were silently dropped
Reconnection logic caused duplicate events

In short:

👉 The WebSocket connection existed, but it wasn’t managed properly.

🛠️ The Solution

1️⃣ Proper Socket Initialization in Vue

The socket was being re-initialized on every component load.

Fix: Create a single reusable socket instance.


js
// socket.js
import { io } from "socket.io-client";

let socket = null;

export const connectSocket = (token) => {
  if (!socket) {
    socket = io(import.meta.env.VITE_SOCKET_URL, {
      auth: { token },
      transports: ["websocket"],
    });
  }
  return socket;
};