laravel-3 core exception on new installation - laravel

Question

I have a new installation of Laravel on a machine running ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Nginx, php-cgi, and Laravel v3.2.14
I am getting the following error.
Unhandled Exception
Message:
Undefined index: argv
Location:
DOCUMNET ROOT/laravel/core.php on line 218
EDIT:
I have managed to get a slightly more descriptive error by commenting out the error handling function in laravel //Error::shutdown(); on line 50 of DOCUMENT ROOT/laravel/laravel.php
Note that this line does not cause the error, it only seems to register a handler for the code that does.
Here is the error:
Unhandled Exception
Message:
A driver must be set before using the session.
Location:
DOCUMENT ROOT/laravel/session.php on line 109
Stack Trace:
DOCUMENT ROOT/laravel/session.php(150): Laravel\Session::instance()
DOCUMENT ROOT/laravel/laravel.php(195):
Laravel\Session::__callStatic('save', Array)
DOCUMENT ROOT/laravel/laravel.php(195): Laravel\Session::save()
DOCUMENT ROOT/public/index.php(34): require('/mona/developme...')
{main}
These are the code blocks causing the error:
if (Config::get('session.driver') !== '')
{
Session::save();
}
Which calls this function in DOCUMENT ROOT/laravel/session.php
public static function __callStatic($method, $parameters)
{
return call_user_func_array(array(static::instance(), $method), $parameters);
}
$method contains the string 'save', and $parameters is an empty array.

Answer 1

Laravel thinks that it is being accessed by cli if you are using php-cgi.
The solution is Modifying DOCUMENT ROOT/laravel/request.php like this:
public static function cli()
{
// This is a hack to make laravel work with fast-cgi
// Added by David - 03/27/13
if(!array_key_exists('argv', $_SERVER)) return false;
return defined('STDIN') || (substr(PHP_SAPI, 0, 3) == 'cgi' && getenv('TERM'));
}
Checking if the $_SERVER super global has the 'argv' key before returning false permits cli to continue to function while using php-cgi.

Answer 2

Inspired by your answer, this worked for me:
public static function cli()
{
if(array_key_exists('HTTP_HOST', $_SERVER)) return false;
return defined('STDIN') || (substr(PHP_SAPI, 0, 3) == 'cgi' && getenv('TERM'));
}