Does anyone have any possible solutions? I have tried everything. Re-install, composer update, etc. This happens on A2 hosting and Hostgator.

Here is the error live.

Make sure you're running PHP >= 5.3.

Here is my .htaccess:

# Use PHP 5.3
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php-53 .php

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    <IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
        Options -MultiViews
    </IfModule>

    RewriteEngine On

    # Redirect Trailing Slashes...
    RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]

    # Handle Front Controller...
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>

To make sure I also switched the php version manually in the CPanel to PHP 5.3.8

Make sure that when running php from the cli it's using >= 5.3:

php -v

The error message relates to the use of traits, however the current releases of Laravel do not use traits. If you go to Illuminate/Support/Str.php in the current release (4.1.28) you should see the following:

<?php namespace Illuminate\Support;

class Str {

	/**
	 * The registered string macros.
	 *
	 * @var array
	 */
	protected static $macros = array();

Line 7 is just a comment, so it can't be the cause of that error. If you look at the development version of that file:

<?php namespace Illuminate\Support;

use Illuminate\Support\Traits\MacroableTrait;

class Str {

	use MacroableTrait;

Line 7 is requesting a trait, which would cause the error you're experiencing (PHP 5.4.0 is required for traits). I suspect that the problem is you're using the development version of Laravel -- which isn't a good idea in production -- and the development version of Laravel requires PHP 5.4.0.

Please paste the contents of your composer.json file, it's very likely you either have "minimum-stability" set to dev (instead of stable) or you're explicitly requiring the development version of Laravel.

If this is the case (and using the development version is your goal) you'll need to update to PHP 5.4.0.

Still not working. Here is my .htaccess:

# Use PHP 5.3
AddType application/x-httpd-php53 .php
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    <IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
        Options -MultiViews
    </IfModule>

    RewriteEngine On

    # Redirect Trailing Slashes...
    RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]

    # Handle Front Controller...
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Here is my composer.json:

{
	"name": "laravel/laravel",
	"description": "The Laravel Framework.",
	"keywords": ["framework", "laravel"],
	"license": "MIT",
	"require": {
		"laravel/framework": "4.1.*"
	},
	"autoload": {
		"classmap": [
			"app/commands",
			"app/controllers",
			"app/models",
			"app/database/migrations",
			"app/database/seeds",
			"app/tests/TestCase.php"
		]
	},
	"scripts": {
		"post-install-cmd": [
			"php artisan clear-compiled",
			"php artisan optimize"
		],
		"post-update-cmd": [
			"php artisan clear-compiled",
			"php artisan optimize"
		],
		"post-create-project-cmd": [
			"php artisan key:generate"
		]
	},
	"config": {
		"preferred-install": "dist"
	},
	"minimum-stability": "stable"
}

I did notice that when I click on composer.json file on live server it shows "laravel/framework": "4.2.*" How is that even possible for the file to change. This does not make sense.

I also tried updating composer with laravel/laravel":4.1.*" instead of laravel/framework.

Here is the working version when I did a clean install a few months back.

Here is the error version when I try to do a clean install now.

@ citricsquid

What is the exact link I should be cloning laravel so I do not accidentally get the dev version?

I'm not sure what you mean wrt "cloning laravel", if you you follow the install instructions on the Laravel docs (composer create-project laravel/laravel --prefer-dist) you'll get the project files for the latest release (4.1.28) with a composer.json requiring Laravel 4.1, you should never end up with the development version unless you explicitly require it.

I'm not really sure why (or how) your composer.json went from requiring Laravel 4.1 to 4.2 when you moved the file to production, perhaps there's a reason that someone else will know. For now just change it back to 4.1 and everything should work.

I started from scratch again. This time I did what you said. I still have the same error

php composer.phar create-project laravel/laravel

curl -S getcomposer.org/installer | php

php composer.phar install

php composer.phar update

I also added this to my .htaccess:

# Use PHP 5.3
AddType application/x-httpd-php53 .php

I also tried php54. I also left .htaccess as default file and changed php version to 5.3 and then tried 5.4 on A2 hosting in Cpanel. Still no change from the original error. This is frustrating.

Here is my result:

$ composer create-project laravel/laravel
Installing laravel/laravel (v4.1.27)
  - Installing laravel/laravel (v4.1.27)
    Downloading: 100%
    [...]
  - Installing laravel/framework (v4.1.28)
    Downloading: 100%
    [...]

$ head -10 laravel/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Support/Str.php

<?php namespace Illuminate\Support;

class Str {

        /**
         * The registered string macros.
         *
         * @var array
         */
        protected static $macros = array();

I'm at a complete loss as to why you could be experiencing this, perhaps I'm missing something blindingly obvious and someone else with fresh eyes can identify the problem. Just to make absolutely sure I haven't misdiagnosed the problem, please can you paste the contents of composer.json (the file on the server) and the contents of vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Support/Str.php (the file on the server).

Edit: this is a long shot and perhaps impossible, but could your web host be running a local mirror of composer and have the dev version? That seems exceptionally unlikely but...