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Peter Thaleikis 🍪
Peter Thaleikis 🍪

Posted on • Originally published at peterthaleikis.com

Laravel: Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes

The Problem: "Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes"

One of these issues you might stumble across using the PHP framework Laravel is this one:

Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes
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After some research, I've found out it's coming up when using older versions of MySQL (prior to 5.7.8) or MariaDB (prior to 10.2.2). It was MariaDB in my case.

Solution #1:

In Laravel this can be resolved simply by changing your app service provider configuration (in app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php) with the following:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

public function boot()
{
    /**
     * Ensure we aren't running into `Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes`
     *
     * @see https://peterthaleikis.com/posts/laravel:-specified-key-was-too-long-max-key-length-is-767-bytes/
     **/
    Schema::defaultStringLength(191);
}
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After this you might need to rebuild your database using php artisan migrate:fresh --seed - this will completely reset your database and start off fresh.

Solution #2:

You can also upgrade your database server. This hasn't been discussed here as it is very system-specific. DuckDuckGo is your friend 💪️

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