Laravel's Storage::exists returns false while file_exists return true

June 16, 2023

I have the following Laravel process happening in a job:

If the project is using S3 disk, the file is downloaded from S3 to local disk at storage/app/videos-to-convert/{video-name}
Use ffmpeg to copy the video and add the necessary metadata
Check some information on the metadata of the video and save to DB
If S3 is in use, move the local file to S3.

The issue is that Laravel’s Storage::disk('local')->exists($videoPath) is returning false while file_exists($videoPath) is returning true.

// We will need to move the S3 file into local disk so that we can run FFMPEG
if ($this->isUsingS3Bucket()) {
  $s3File = Storage::disk('s3')->get("videos-to-convert/{$this->session->id}.{$this->session->video_extension}");
  Storage::disk('local')->put("videos-to-convert/{$this->session->id}.{$this->session->video_extension}", $s3File);
}

// Over here, we are sure of these paths.
// I have double-checked them, and they are correct.
$inputPath = storage_path("app/videos-to-convert/{$this->session->id}.{$this->session->video_extension}");
$outputPath = storage_path("app/videos/{$this->session->id}.{$this->session->video_extension}");

// The video's headless information is sent by MediaRecorder in the browser.
// We need to copy the video with ffmpeg, so we can get meta information such as the duration of the video.
shell_exec("ffmpeg -y -i $inputPath -vcodec copy -acodec copy $outputPath");

$ffprobe = FFProbe::create();
$durationInSeconds = $ffprobe->format($outputPath)->get('duration');

echo "-------\n";

$o = shell_exec("ls -la /var/www/html/storage/app/videos");

// This `ls -la` shows that the video exists in the location used in Storage::disk('local')->exists($outputPath)
echo $o;

if ($this->isUsingS3Bucket()) {
  $exists = file_exists($outputPath);
  $existLaravel = Storage::disk('local')->exists($outputPath);

  if ($exists) {
    echo "FILE EXISTS 'file_exists'------\n";
  }

  if ($existLaravel) {
    echo "FILE EXISTS WITH Storage::disk('local') LARAVEL-----\n";
  }

  // The rest of the code
}

The file_exists($outputPath) returns true, but Laravel’s Storage::disk('local')->exists($outputPath) returns false. Why is this happening?