Exception: Illuminate \ Broadcasting \ BroadcastException No message in PusherBroadcaster.php:119

Laravel 5.8

I am new to this whole pusher functionality and I've been following this tutorial and trying it out, Create Web Notifications Using Laravel and Pusher Channels. I've followed it step-by-step and when I get to the step to manually test the event by visiting the test url, I receive the following exception:

Illuminate \ Broadcasting \ BroadcastException No message

C:\wamp\www\ares\vendor\laravel\framework\src\Illuminate\Broadcasting\Broadcasters\PusherBroadcaster.php

    $response = $this->pusher->trigger(
        $this->formatChannels($channels), $event, $payload, $socket, true
    );

    if ((is_array($response) && $response['status'] >= 200 && $response['status'] <= 299)
        || $response === true) {
        return;
    }

    throw new BroadcastException( // <-- Exception at this line
        is_bool($response) ? 'Failed to connect to Pusher.' : $response['body']
    );
}

/**
 * Get the Pusher SDK instance.
 *
 * @return \Pusher\Pusher
 */
public function getPusher()
{
    return $this->pusher;
}
}

I've looked at a few other stack overflow articles which talk about changing encrypted: true to encrypted: false but that does not seem to affect anything.

via Chebli Mohamed