Exceptions will not render Laravel 5.7 - laravel

Question

I am using Laravel v 5.7.15.
I wrote a validation helper which validates an API request - this works successfully, and prior I was using a try/catch to surround it.
I have moved on to handling the exception in the handler, however I cannot get the function 'render' to run - it goes straight into 'report' and throws in the exception in my tinker console.
Handler: (full class as requested)
<?php
namespace App\Exceptions;
use Illuminate\Validation\ValidationException;
use Exception;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Exceptions\Handler as ExceptionHandler;
use App\Log;
class Handler extends ExceptionHandler
{
/**
* A list of the exception types that are not reported.
*
* #var array
*/
protected $dontReport = [
//
];
/**
* A list of the inputs that are never flashed for validation exceptions.
*
* #var array
*/
protected $dontFlash = [
'password',
'password_confirmation',
];
/**
* #param Exception $exception
* #return mixed|void
* #throws Exception
*/
public function report(Exception $exception)
{
parent::report($exception);
}
/**
* Render an exception into an HTTP response.
*
* #param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* #param \Exception $exception
* #return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function render($request, Exception $exception)
{
dd($exception);
$log = new Log();
$log->status = 2;
// Validate API incoming data
if ($exception instanceOf ValidationException) {
foreach ($exception->errors() as $error) {
// collect multiple validation errors
$message[] = implode('', $error);
}
$message = implode('', $message);
$log->message = $message;
$log->save();
$response = [
'message' => $message,
'status' => 400,
];
} else {
$response = [
'message' => $exception->getMessage(),
'status' => '500',
];
}
return parent::render($request, $exception);
}
}
This fails to die and dump, however I can dd in the report function and this works fine. The rest of this file has been left untouched, save for the includes at the top of the file.
This is how I call my validator in my controller:
$this->validate($request, BlueparkValidatorArrays::$getOrders);
If anybody could point me in the right direction, I would be most grateful.

Answer 1

This may be caused by a problem in your log configuration.
The call to parent::report($exception); runs the following from the laravel source code:
public function report(Exception $e)
{
...
try {
$logger = $this->container->make(LoggerInterface::class);
} catch (Exception $ex) {
throw $e; // throw the original exception
}
...
}
Note throw $e not throw $ex. So if creating the logger implementation fails, the original exception that was being processed is thrown.
To test this, comment out parent::report($exception); in your report function and see if render() is called as expected.
If it is, your log configuration is not working. Make sure you have the correct permissions on your log location and that your .env file doesn't override any of laravel's logging settings. See How to debug Laravel error 500 with no logs, no information