Laravel 5 SQLSTATE[42S22]: Column not found: 1054 Unknown column 'user_id' in 'field list'

Question

I'm having problems when I try to create a new project logged as a user. My old table 'projects' had a column called user_id, and I decided to delete it, because laravel 5 do it automatically. So, I refresh the migrations with the correct projects table (without the 'user_id' column), but when I try to create the new project, I got this error:

QueryException in Connection.php line 614:
SQLSTATE[42S22]: Column not found: 1054 Unknown column 'user_id' in 'field list' (SQL: insert into `projects` (`name`, `slug`, `user_id`, `updated_at`, `created_at`) values (Project 1, project-1, 1, 2015-02-18 23:36:28, 2015-02-18 23:36:28))

Its really odd, cause I didn't find the 'user_id' in any files that 'projects' is related. I checked the workbench and the table is ok. Here's the function that I call to store de project:

    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        Auth::user()->projects()->create($request->all());

        return Redirect::route('projects.index')->with('message', 'Project created!');
    }

It seems that the laravel stored my old 'projects' table and did not refresh when I did it. I already updated the composer an dump-autoload, but the error persists. Here's the part of table creation on the migration file:

    Schema::create('projects', function(Blueprint $table)
    {
        $table->increments('id');
        $table->string('name');
        $table->string('slug');
        $table->timestamps();
    });

There's no 'user_id' column. Here's my Project model:

<?php namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Project extends Model {
    protected $table = 'projects';

    protected $guarded = [];

    public function tasks()
    {
        return $this->hasMany('App\Task');
    }
    public function users()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo('App\User');
    }
}

The Task model is the same, except in the relationship parts. And the User model I'm using the default one, only adding the relationships.

I appreciate any help related.

Answer 1

The problem here is that you should have user_id column for your projects table. Laravel won't alter your DB schema automatically

When you run:

Auth::user()->projects()->create($request->all());

Laravel tries to do something like that:

Project::create(array_merge($request->all(), 'user_id' => Auth::user()->id));

So Laravel will try to assign the newly created project to the user you gave him (in this case Auth::user()). So you in this case you need to have user_id column because you even defined relationship:

public function users()
{
    return $this->belongsTo('App\User');
}

so the default column to bind project to user will be user_id and it's needed in your schema to work.