MelodAI Documentation — Shared Hosting

Hosting Requirements

PHP 8.3 (8.2 minimum if host does not offer 8.3 yet)
MySQL 8 / MariaDB, SSH or Terminal access (strongly recommended)
Composer available via SSH or upload vendor from local build
Ability to set document root to Laravel public folder
Cron jobs (required for scheduler and queue processing)

Step 1: PHP Version and Extensions (cPanel)

In cPanel open Select PHP Version or MultiPHP INI Editor:

Select PHP 8.3 for your domain.
Enable: bcmath, ctype, curl, fileinfo, gd, intl, mbstring, mysql, pcntl, pdo_mysql, posix, openssl, tokenizer, xml, zip, exif.
Set memory_limit ≥ 256M, max_execution_time ≥ 300.

Verify from Terminal:

/usr/local/bin/php -m

Step 2: Build and Upload Hostinger Package

On your local machine (with Composer and Node installed), create the hosting archive:

composer run package-hostinger

Upload melodai-hostinger.zip via cPanel File Manager. Do not zip vendor or node_modules manually — large extracts often cause HTTP 500 on shared hosts.

Extract zip into public_html (or a folder above it).
Run composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader on the server after extract.

Step 3: Point Document Root to /public

cPanel → Domains → edit your domain.
Set document root to /home/USERNAME/public_html/public (adjust path to match extract location).
If the host cannot change docroot, copy only public/* into public_html and update index.php paths to the Laravel root one level up.

Step 4: Configure Production .env

APP_ENV=production

APP_DEBUG=false

APP_URL=https://melodai.site

QUEUE_CONNECTION=database

FILESYSTEM_DISK=cloudflare

Set database credentials from cPanel MySQL Databases:

DB_DATABASE=cpuser_melodai

DB_USERNAME=cpuser_dbuser

DB_PASSWORD=strong_password

In Admin → Settings → General, set Site URL to your HTTPS domain. Cron HTTP URLs are generated from this value.

Step 5: Run Artisan Commands

From cPanel Terminal (use full PHP path):

/usr/local/bin/php /home/USERNAME/public_html/artisan key:generate --force

/usr/local/bin/php /home/USERNAME/public_html/artisan migrate --force

/usr/local/bin/php /home/USERNAME/public_html/artisan storage:link

/usr/local/bin/php /home/USERNAME/public_html/artisan config:cache

/usr/local/bin/php /home/USERNAME/public_html/artisan route:cache

/usr/local/bin/php /home/USERNAME/public_html/artisan view:cache

Complete /install if this is a fresh server, or ensure installer was completed once.

Step 6: Cron Jobs and Queue Workers

Open Admin → Cron & Queue on your live site and copy the exact commands shown (they include your token and server paths).

HTTP cron (recommended for scheduler):

curl -s "https://yourdomain.com/cron/schedule?token=YOUR_TOKEN" > /dev/null 2>&1

PHP queue workers (use full paths from admin page):

/usr/local/bin/php /home/USERNAME/public_html/artisan queue:work database --queue=default --sleep=3 --tries=3 --timeout=60 --stop-when-empty > /dev/null 2>&1

Never use melodai.site/public_html/artisan as the command — that is a hostname fragment, not a file path. Use /usr/local/bin/php + absolute path to artisan.

Suggested schedules:

Scheduler URL: every minute (* * * * *)
Default queue: every minute
Music generation queue: every 2 minutes (*/2 * * * *)
Video processing queue: every 2 minutes

Step 7: SSL and SMTP

Enable AutoSSL in cPanel, then force HTTPS in APP_URL and Site URL.

Configure mail in Admin → Settings → Mail or .env:

MAIL_MAILER=smtp

MAIL_HOST=mail.yourdomain.com

MAIL_PORT=465

MAIL_USERNAME=info@yourdomain.com

MAIL_PASSWORD=mailbox_password

Troubleshooting (Shared Hosting)

Unauthorized on cron URL: copy fresh URLs from Admin → Cron & Queue; ensure identical token on all jobs.
500 after zip extract: run composer install --no-dev on server; check storage/logs/laravel.log.
Jobs stuck pending: verify queue cron commands use full PHP + artisan paths.
FFmpeg missing: ask host to enable FFmpeg or use VPS for video features.