I just made some headway... It looks like I have a mess of config parameters on the production site. Some things are set in .env.php...and others in nginx configuration (as fastcgi_param entries). The production site leverages Laravel Forge (my dev environment does not).

So I found that my AWS creds were in the nginx config, but not in the .env.php file. The live site apparently pulls environment variables from the nginx config...but the queue environment relies on the env.php file.

Bottom line - the AWS creds were not available to the queue process, but were available to the non-queue processes.

What a headache. Anyone know why Forge uses the nginx config file for environment variables? Where is the best place for environment variables in Forge for Laravel 4.2? Forge has changed how it implements configuration information since I first signed up.

Any suggestions or insights on Forge & environment variables? Thanks!