Laravel Artisan can talk to MySQL but Laravel web page cannot?

I have a new VM running ubuntu(16.04)/apache(2.4)/php(7.2)/mysql(5.7) and I have installed Laravel 5.5.latest.

I have set up db connection details in .env file. (which are correct as I can use them to connect in mysql on the command line)

Laravel artisan can talk to the DB because my migrations have worked (I can see the tables from mysql on the command line)

But Laravel web pages cannot access the db, complaining that table . does not exist.

I've put in some debug into the page and it dumps the correct .env db settings.

Any idea why the db works from Artisan on the CLI but not via web pages?

via Chebli Mohamed