Problems Enabling Redis in FreeScout – Sessions & Queue Not Working

[voipexpert]

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to enable Redis for caching, sessions, and queues in FreeScout, but I’m facing issues.

My Setup:

• FreeScout Version: 1.8.173
• PHP Version: 8.2
• Web Server: Nginx
• Database: MySQL
• Redis Version: 7.0.15
• Redis PHP Extension: Installed php8.2-redis

What I Did:

1. Updated .env file:

   CACHE_DRIVER=redis  
   SESSION_DRIVER=redis  
   QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis  
   
   REDIS_CLIENT=phpredis  
   REDIS_HOST=127.0.0.1  
   REDIS_PASSWORD=null  
   REDIS_PORT=6379  
   SESSION_LIFETIME=120  
   

2. Cleared cache and restarted services:

   sudo -u www-data php artisan cache:clear  
   sudo -u www-data php artisan config:clear  
   sudo -u www-data php artisan queue:restart  
   sudo systemctl restart php8.2-fpm  
   sudo systemctl restart nginx  
   sudo systemctl restart redis  
   

3. Checked Redis connection:

   redis-cli ping  
   

   • Returns PONG ✅

Problems I'm Facing:

1. Session errors (CacheBasedSessionHandler.php)

   • 500 error in logs:

     Illuminate\Session\CacheBasedSessionHandler::open() must return bool, string returned
     

   • Tried modifying CacheBasedSessionHandler.php but no luck.

2. Queue worker fails to start

   • Running sudo -u www-data php artisan queue:work gives errors related to transactions or Redis connection.

3. Predis not working

   • Error:

     Class 'Predis\Client' not found
     

   • Switched to phpredis, but still facing session errors.

What I Tried:

• Ensured php8.2-redis is installed.
• Switched from Predis to phpredis.
• Verified Redis is responding (redis-cli ping).
• Cleared cache and restarted all services.

Help Needed:

1. How to fix Redis session errors in FreeScout?
2. How to properly configure CacheBasedSessionHandler.php?
3. How to get queue workers running with Redis?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[gustburns]

Get the Laravel redis configuration and configurate the database.php file to get it working.
https://laravel.com/docs/11.x/redis#configuration

I've done this today and worked.

[Ipstenu]

I was able to make Redis work as well. There's actually an interesting issue involved here, and it's due to $rememberCacheDriver being hard configured to array:

freescout/app/Mailbox.php

Line 15 in 31c72b8

public $rememberCacheDriver = 'array';

Basically no matter what, your cache will return array for anything that uses that.

Now, I get why it's array and not file, but it makes it an awful wrench when you need to override it. I think a valid fix to be backwards supporting be either using CACHE_DRIVER (see

freescout/config/cache.php

Line 18 in 31c72b8

'default' => env('CACHE_DRIVER', 'file'),

) or making something new:

'remember' => env('REMEMBER_CACHE_DRIVER', 'array'),

Then change all instances of public $rememberCacheDriver = 'array'; to public $rememberCacheDriver = config('cache.remember');

How I fixed it

PreReq: predis (composer require predis/predis --ignore-platform-req=php)

While I could have edited all those files, I wanted to limit how many I have to handle with my override tool.

First I edited /config/database.php and changed the Redis section as follows:

    'redis' => [

        'client' => env( 'REDIS_CLIENT', 'predis' ),

        'default' => [
            'host'     => env( 'REDIS_HOST', '127.0.0.1' ),
            'password' => env( 'REDIS_PASSWORD', null ),
            'port'     => env( 'REDIS_PORT', 6379 ),
            'database' => 0, // this MUST be set to 0
            'scheme'   =>  env( 'REDIS_SCHEME', 'tls' ),
            'ssl'      => [
                'cafile' => env( 'REDIS_CAFILE', '/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt' ),
            ],
        ],

The CA file is because DigitalOcean is stupid.

Now, I have a custom module for our company where I manage all the custom weirdness we do (login commands, ldap tweaks, etc). Using that, I made a new service I called RedisForAllModels.php which looks like this:

<?php

namespace Modules\MYMODULE\Services;

class RedisForAllModels {

	public static function patchRememberableModels() {

		$models = [
			\App\Customer::class,
			\App\Email::class,
			\App\User::class,
			\App\MailboxUser::class,
			\App\Conversation::class,
			\App\Mailbox::class,
		];

		// For the above models, patch the Rememberable trait to use Redis.
		foreach ( $models as $model_class ) {
			try {
				$model_class::retrieved( function ( $instance ) {
					$instance->rememberCacheDriver = 'redis';
				} );
			} catch (\Exception $e) {
				\Log::warning( "Failed to patch Rememberable for {$model_class}: " . $e->getMessage() );
			}
		}
	}
}

Finally I edited app\Providers\AppServiceProvider.php and put this in the boot() method at the top:

        // MYMODULE: Register uses RedisForAllModels
        if ( class_exists( \Modules\MYMODULE\Services\RedisForAllModels::class ) ) {
            \Modules\MYMODULE\Services\RedisForAllModels::patchRememberableModels();
        }

You could also put the patchRememberableModels method right into AppServiceProvider.php

(There's also some mess with DigitalOcean and TLS which is unrelated but hilarious).