Removing Redis from Laravel Project in Windows

Question

My project will not start without Redis running. I get this message if I try to open a page without redis running in Laravel:

"No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. [tcp://127.0.0.1:6379]"

I've tried 1) php artisan config:cache, 2) php artisan clear:cache, 3) composer remove predis/predis 4) composer remove predis 5) removing instances of redis 6) uninstall redis through command line

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

cache.php

<?php

return [

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Default Cache Store
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | This option controls the default cache connection that gets used while
    | using this caching library. This connection is used when another is
    | not explicitly specified when executing a given caching function.
    |
    | Supported: "apc", "array", "database", "file", "memcached", "redis"
    |
    */

    'default' => env('CACHE_DRIVER', 'file'),

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Cache Stores
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | Here you may define all of the cache "stores" for your application as
    | well as their drivers. You may even define multiple stores for the
    | same cache driver to group types of items stored in your caches.
    |
    */

    'stores' => [

        'apc' => [
            'driver' => 'apc',
        ],

        'array' => [
            'driver' => 'array',
        ],

        'database' => [
            'driver' => 'database',
            'table' => 'cache',
            'connection' => null,
        ],

        'file' => [
            'driver' => 'file',
            'path' => storage_path('framework/cache/data'),
        ],

        'memcached' => [
            'driver' => 'memcached',
            'persistent_id' => env('MEMCACHED_PERSISTENT_ID'),
            'sasl' => [
                env('MEMCACHED_USERNAME'),
                env('MEMCACHED_PASSWORD'),
            ],
            'options' => [
                // Memcached::OPT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT  => 2000,
            ],
            'servers' => [
                [
                    'host' => env('MEMCACHED_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
                    'port' => env('MEMCACHED_PORT', 11211),
                    'weight' => 100,
                ],
            ],
        ],

        'redis' => [
            'driver' => 'file',
            'connection' => 'default',
        ],

    ],

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Cache Key Prefix
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | When utilizing a RAM based store such as APC or Memcached, there might
    | be other applications utilizing the same cache. So, we'll specify a
    | value to get prefixed to all our keys so we can avoid collisions.
    |
    */

    'prefix' => env(
        'CACHE_PREFIX',
        str_slug(env('APP_NAME', 'laravel'), '_').'_cache'
    ),

];

.env

APP_NAME=Laravel
APP_ENV=local
APP_KEY=base64:duZtCSIh12vDNOdmYW2kmMr9ONILxsH55f46npt5/Kg=
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_LOG_LEVEL=debug
APP_URL=http://localhost

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=forum
DB_USERNAME=
DB_PASSWORD=

BROADCAST_DRIVER=log
CACHE_DRIVER=file
SESSION_DRIVER=file
QUEUE_DRIVER=sync

MAIL_DRIVER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=smtp.mailtrap.io
MAIL_PORT=2525
MAIL_USERNAME=bc05914be7f1db
MAIL_PASSWORD=0c73506a138d3f
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null

PUSHER_APP_ID=
PUSHER_APP_KEY=
PUSHER_APP_SECRET=

RECAPTCHA_SECRET=

Answer 1

If you don't want to install any cache service like Redis or Memcached, you can use the file or database driver on Laravel.

To change the cache driver you must change the CACHE_DRIVER variable your .env file to file, or modify the config/cache.php file.

The default cache.php config file looks like this:

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Default Cache Store
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This option controls the default cache connection that gets used while
| using this caching library. This connection is used when another is
| not explicitly specified when executing a given caching function.
|
| Supported: "apc", "array", "database", "file",
|            "memcached", "redis", "dynamodb"
|
*/
'default' => env('CACHE_DRIVER', 'file'),

The env() function get the data from environment variable defined on first parameter, and fallback to the value defined on second parameter. So if your .env file define a CACHE_DRIVER variable, it will ignore the second parameter value.

For more information, see https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/cache

Answer 2

I got the same issue just now. The error:

"No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. [tcp://127.0.0.1:6379]"

This means there is something in the app that still use redis for its service.

1. Check controllers and/or models for redis connection or redis methods and remove all of those.
2. On the config, you wanna check cache, database, queue and filesystem. To do this make sure your env file is clear of anything related to redis:

// .env
CACHE_DRIVER=redis // change this to file
QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis // change this to sync

// I was using redis for azure cache and I missed this one because it was hard coded,
// now I placed it inside env file
AZURE_CACHE_STORE=redis // change this to file

// In fact u can skip commenting this out
#REDIS_CLIENT=predis
#REDIS_HOST=redis
#REDIS_PASSWORD=null
#REDIS_PORT=6379

No need to comment or remove Redis in config/app.php

If you are planning of simply switching out redis for later, no need to remove use Redis; in the files that will need it in the future. On production better remove these completely.

Same with phpredis or predis, no need to remove them if you will use it for later otherwise.

Key here is to check all your config to better have idea where whose redis things are or simply by using your text editor, just search all through the files with redis keyword.