Permission seeder - PermissionDoesNotExist

[basic-ph]

Hello hello! 👋

This is the first time using laravel-permission so maybe I'm missing something important.
I'm experiencing a strange issue while seeding my database with permissions and roles.

This is the code in my DatabaseSeeder.php which is very close to the template default:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Database\Seeders;

use App\Models\Material;
use App\Models\User;
use Illuminate\Database\Console\Seeds\WithoutModelEvents;
use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;

final class DatabaseSeeder extends Seeder
{
    use WithoutModelEvents;

    /**
     * Seed the application's database.
     */
    public function run(): void
    {

        $this->call([
            RolesAndPermissionsSeeder::class,
        ]);

        // User::factory(10)->create();

        User::factory()->create([
            'name' => 'Test User',
            'email' => '[email protected]',
        ]);

        // Material
        Material::factory(3)->create();
    }
}

The RolesAndPermissionsSeeder.php file code is the one provided by documentation Roles/Permissions Seeder.

In this situation when I run the command ./vendor/bin/sail artisan migrate:fresh --seed I get the following error:

[...]
   INFO  Seeding database.  

 Database\Seeders\RolesAndPermissionsSeeder ............................................................................................... RUNNING  

  Spatie\Permission\Exceptions\PermissionDoesNotExist 

 There is no permission named `edit articles` for guard `web`.

 at vendor/spatie/laravel-permission/src/Exceptions/PermissionDoesNotExist.php:11
     7▕ class PermissionDoesNotExist extends InvalidArgumentException
     8▕ {
     9▕     public static function create(string $permissionName, ?string $guardName)
    10▕     {
 ➜  11▕         return new static("There is no permission named `{$permissionName}` for guard `{$guardName}`.");
    12▕     }
    13▕ 
    14▕     /**
    15▕      * @param  int|string  $permissionId

     +6 vendor frames 

 7   database/seeders/RolesAndPermissionsSeeder.php:26
     Spatie\Permission\Models\Role::givePermissionTo()
     +8 vendor frames 

 16  database/seeders/DatabaseSeeder.php:22
     Illuminate\Database\Seeder::call()

While trying to understand the issue I made some tests. I noticed the following behavior: If I store the first Permission model instance inside a variable and later use that variable to pass it as argument to givePermissionTo method the seed works fine.
I checked also in my database tables and everything seems right to me.
This is the "working" code:

<?php

namespace Database\Seeders;

use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;
use Spatie\Permission\Models\Role;
use Spatie\Permission\Models\Permission;

class RolesAndPermissionsSeeder extends Seeder
{
    public function run(): void
    {
        // Reset cached roles and permissions
        app()[\Spatie\Permission\PermissionRegistrar::class]->forgetCachedPermissions();

        // create permissions
        $permission1 = Permission::create(['name' => 'edit articles']); // PERMISSION STORED IN VARIABLE
        Permission::create(['name' => 'delete articles']);
        Permission::create(['name' => 'publish articles']);
        Permission::create(['name' => 'unpublish articles']);

        // create roles and assign created permissions

        // this can be done as separate statements
        $role = Role::create(['name' => 'writer']);
        $role->givePermissionTo($permission1); // VARIABLE USED TO LINK PERMISSION TO ROLE

        // or may be done by chaining
        $role = Role::create(['name' => 'moderator'])
            ->givePermissionTo(['publish articles', 'unpublish articles']);

        $role = Role::create(['name' => 'super-admin']);
        $role->givePermissionTo(Permission::all());
    }
}

Any clarification or explanation of this behavior would be enormously helpful?
Thank you in advance 🚸 🆘

[drbyte]

The examples don't specify a guard (because they're intended to be more generic), so it defaults to the first guard defined in your /config/auth.php list of guards. If you've changed that from 'web' to something else, that could explain why it might not be finding the record.

But, as you've done, assigning the created record to a variable, and using that later is a perfectly acceptable approach.

[basic-ph]

I have not changed the default guard, it is currently “web”.
I am wondering why it is not possible to assign a permission to a role using the name as stated in the documentation for the first role (writer) but it seems perfectly fine for the 2nd (moderator) role.

[drbyte]

I just created a new project to test it, and ran the example seeder without any problems:

laravel new permissionseed

(Chose No UI, No git, SQLite, Migrate:yes)

composer require spatie/laravel-permission
php artisan vendor:publish

(chose Spatie Permissions package from the Publish list)

php artisan migrate
php artisan make:seed RolesAndPermissionsSeeder

Edited the RolesAndPermissionsSeeder.php file as shown in the docs page you linked to.
Also edited DatabaseSeeder.php to add $this->call([RolesAndPermissionsSeeder::class]); as you had done above.

php artisan db:seed

Seeded without issues.

Cleared and ran again to test:

php artisan migrate:fresh --seed

Seeded without issues.

Repeated with the seeder example in https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-permission/v6/basic-usage/new-app as well, for thoroughness. Seeded, but with one problem: the User seeding gave an error because both seeders use [email protected] for the user email. Easy change. Then migrate:fresh --seed again, without problems. (EDIT: also had to add the HasRoles trait to the User model, as per normal install of this package.)

What's different in the process you've been using?

[drbyte]

OH ... Maybe you're using use WithoutModelEvents;?

Try without that.

Or add a cache-flush after creating those permissions:

    use WithoutModelEvents;

    public function run(): void
    {
        // Reset cached roles and permissions
        app()[PermissionRegistrar::class]->forgetCachedPermissions();

        // create permissions
        Permission::create(['name' => 'edit articles']);
        Permission::create(['name' => 'delete articles']);
        Permission::create(['name' => 'publish articles']);
        Permission::create(['name' => 'unpublish articles']);

        // update cache
+        app()[PermissionRegistrar::class]->forgetCachedPermissions();

[basic-ph]

Thank you very much @drbyte for your help!
The problem was that I have WithoutModelEvents trait in my DatabaseSeeder class. My experience with Laravel is still quite limited, I thought that the trail would affect the behaviour of DatabaseSeeder only but as it says here:

When used, the WithoutModelEvents trait ensures no model events are dispatched, even if additional seed classes are executed via the call method

Muting Model Events

In an empty project in Laravel the Database seeder class has the default trait WithoutModelEvents. Do you think it might be useful to include a commented line in the example of RolesAndPermissionsSeeder.php ?

Something like this:

// Reset cached roles and permissions
app()[\Spatie\Permission\PermissionRegistrar::class]->forgetCachedPermissions();

// create permissions
Permission::create(['name' => 'edit articles']);
Permission::create(['name' => 'delete articles']);
Permission::create(['name' => 'publish articles']);
Permission::create(['name' => 'unpublish articles']);

// Update cache if the WithoutModelEvents trait is used here or in DatabaseSeeder.php
app()[\Spatie\Permission\PermissionRegistrar::class]->forgetCachedPermissions();

// create roles and assign created permissions
[...]

[drbyte]

Agreed. Docs updated in the repo. The docs site will update on next rebuild/push.