[FIXED] How to fix MySql: index column size too large (Laravel migrate)

Issue

I duplicated a project with a vagrant box which installs Debian, Nginx, PhpMyAdmin, .. With the new project the Laravel's php artisan migrate is not working anymore and I get the error:

[Illuminate\Database\QueryException]                                                                                                                                      
  SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1709 Index column size too large. The maximum column size is 767 bytes. (SQL: alter table `courses` add unique `courses_name_unique`(`na  
  me`))

When I make a dump (structure + data) of the working project database and import it in the database giving the errors on migrate, then everything is ok and it creates all the tables and data is imported..

How can I fix the size so that I can run the migrate method?

Solution

As you can see in the error message - "The maximum column size is 767 bytes", if you want to create an index on it. A VARCHAR(255) column can take up to 765 (255*3) bytes using utf8 and 1020 (255*4) bytes using utf8mb4. This is because in MySQL utf8 takes up to 3 bytes and utf8mb4 up to 4 bytes (the real UTF8). Thus creating a VARCHAR(255) (unique) index with utf8mb4 will fail.

This are your options to fix the problem:

Set default collation in my.ini:

collation_server=utf8_unicode_ci
character_set_server=utf8

Set default collation for the database when creating:

CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `your_db` COLLATE 'utf8_unicode_ci'

Set default collation for the table/column. (I don't recommend that)

Change the column size to 190 (varchar(190)) or less.

Laravel 5.4 fix

The Mysql server configuration is overwriten by Laravel's migration command. It will set the collation and charset to the configuration's version.

Change the fields charset and collation of the db engine in the database config file located in config/database.php.

..
'mysql' => [
            'driver' => 'mysql',
            'host' => env('DB_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
            'port' => env('DB_PORT', '3306'),
            'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', 'forge'),
            'username' => env('DB_USERNAME', 'forge'),
            'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''),
            //'charset' => 'utf8mb4',
            //'collation' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci',
            'charset'   => 'utf8',
            'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
            'prefix' => '',
            'strict' => true,
            'engine' => null,
        ],
..

Answered By - Paul Spiegel