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I am trying to run a time consuming script in the background with Laravel 8, but cant quite get it to work. I try to follow the docs from here https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/queues in combination with the tutorial found here: https://learn2torials.com/a/how-to-create-background-job-in-laravel

As per docs, I should run the following commands to get strateted with Queue/jobs in Laravel

php artisan queue:table
php artisan migrate

Then we should create our Job with the following command

php artisan make:job TestJob

In App\Jobs\ is our newly created job-file: TestJob.php

Again following the docs, I should put my time consuming script/code in the handle() method of TestJob.php. I have written the following code in handle() for test purposes:

public function handle()
{
    //Do some time-consuming stuff
    sleep(30);
}

Next, according to the docs, we should dispatch our job with the following line of code TestJob::dispatch(), anywhere in our app, so for test purposes, I put this line directly into our routes file, like this:

Route::get('/', function () {
    //Run this job in the background and continue
    \App\Jobs\TestJob::dispatch();
    //After job is started/Queued return view
    return view('welcome');
});

That should be it, as I understand from the docs, but it is not working as I expected. The code in handle() gets executed, but the return view('welcome'); is executed AFTER the the job is completed.

I was expecting the script to be executed and while running in the background the next line of code will be executed. How can I make it run in the background so the user do not have to wait for the script to finish?

I have googled a lot and according to the tutorial linked to earlier, I should have the following line: QUEUE_DRIVER=database​ in my .env file. I have sat this, and also sat it in Config\queue.php with the following line: 'default' => env('QUEUE_CONNECTION', 'database'),, but still same result

I also found the following solution for Laravel 5 here on SO (link), where there is suggested that we also should run the following code to get it to work: php artisan queue:listen, but its the same result again

Any help would be much appreciated!

MichaelJorgensenDK
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    `dispatch` is synchronous you will need to use a separate process that executes `php artisan queue:work` in the background. You cannot do async work within your php code. You can use beanstalkd for running the `queue:work` command in the background: https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/queues#supervisor-configuration – MaartenDev Nov 10 '21 at 17:26

1 Answers1

6

By default the .env file has QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync.

Meaning, the sync connection uses the main thread for the execution of tasks. Hence, it has to first complete before moving on to the next line of code.

To make tasks run in the background so that your main application thread won't block and you can serve your client requests more quickly, try using a different connection i.e database.

  • To do this, simply change QUEUE_CONNECTION=database in your .env file.

You may run php artisan queue:listen on your local computer set-up to process tasks as they come in.

NOTE: On the production server, it may be more convenient to set-up something more robust to automatically restart your processes if they fail. Supervisor Configuration

steven7mwesigwa
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