Laravel 5.2 - Staging to Live Server : 500 Internal Server Error

I have a Laravel 5.2 project working fine locally, after uploading to a live server I have a 'laravel' folder in my root directory and public folder under 'public_html/testsite'

My 'index.php' points to the correct '/bootstrap/autoload.php' and '/bootstrap/app.php'

Upon going to my 'url/testsite/' I get a blank page only (was working fine L5.0) firebug shows : 500 Internal Server Error with HTML : Reload the page to get source for...

index.php is loading by testing with die() before any 'require' methods, but after 'require... autoload.php' the die() is not working, however it is successfully calling autoload.php as a die() works within this file.

I'm not sure if this is a .htaccess issue, or maybe I had to set something up in cPanel last time for this folder (I can't remember). I'd appreciate any help!

Please note this Laravel project sits as a test site in a /testsite/ folder along with my current live site files.

via Chebli Mohamed