Laravel 5.3 auth check in constructor returning false

Question

I'm using Laravel 5.3 and I'm trying to get the authenticated user's id in the constructor method so I can filter the user by assigned company as follows:

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\DispatchesJobs;
use Illuminate\Routing\Controller as BaseController;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Validation\ValidatesRequests;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\Access\AuthorizesRequests;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\View;
use App\Models\User;
use App\Models\Company;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;


class Controller extends BaseController
{
    use AuthorizesRequests, DispatchesJobs, ValidatesRequests ;

    public $user;
    public $company;


    public function __construct()
    {


        $companies = Company::pluck('name', 'id');
        $companies->prepend('Please select');
        view()->share('companies', $companies);
        $this->user = User::with('profile')->where('id', \Auth::id())->first();
        if(isset($this->user->company_id)){
            $this->company = Company::find($this->user->company_id);
            if (!isset($this->company)) {
                $this->company = new Company();
            }
            view()->share('company', $this->company);
            view()->share('user', $this->user);
        }

    }

However this doesn't return the user id. I've even tried Auth::check() and it doesn't work.

If I move the Auth::check() out of the __construct() method then this works as follows:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class HomeController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Create a new controller instance.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct();
        $this->middleware('auth');
    }

    /**
     * Show the application dashboard.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function index()
    {
        dd(\Auth::check());
        return view('home');
    }
}

However this fails if I put this in the construct method in the HomeController too!

Any ideas why this is failing?

Answer 1

docs

you can't access the session or authenticated user in your controller's constructor because the middleware has not run yet.

As an alternative, you may define a Closure based middleware directly in your controller's constructor. Before using this feature, make sure that your application is running Laravel 5.3.4 or above:

class ProjectController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * All of the current user's projects.
     */
    protected $projects;

    /**
     * Create a new controller instance.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->middleware(function ($request, $next) {
            $this->projects = Auth::user()->projects;

            return $next($request);
        });
    }
}

Answer 2

Since 5.3 Auth::check will not work in a controller's construtor, it's one of undocumented changes. So, you need to move it to middleware or do check in controller methods instead or move project to 5.2.x.

Answer 3

It fails because you call $this->middleware('auth'); after parent::__construct();. It means that you auth middleware is not loaded properly.