Function not working correctly anymore

So I have this function that used to work great couple days ago but now out of nowhere, it stopped working correctly even though I didn't change any code in the whole app. I am confused on why it stopped working on both local machine and hosting server. Here's the code of the function (It is supposed to add a record if the username is not found in the database and not add if found) :

public function addipH(Request $request)
    {
        
        $noSpacesIP = str_replace(' ', '', $request->HackersIP);
        $noSpacesName = str_replace(' ', '', $request->name);
        $user = User::where('name', '=', $noSpacesName);
        if ($user == null) {
            
        $nIP = new hackers;
        $nIP->HackersIP = $noSpacesIP;
        $nIP->name = $noSpacesName;
        $nIP->description = $request->description;
        $nIP->rep = $request->rep;
        $nIP->miners = $request->miners;
        $nIP->save();
        Session::flash('flash_message', 'IP successfully added!');
        
        }
        else 
        {
            Session::flash('flash_message2', 'IP is for a current user, it can not be added!');
        }
        $name = hackers::all();
        return view('manageH')->with('name',$name);
    }   

I am always getting the second flash message without any addition to the db(mySql). As I said before, It was working completely right couple days ago but all of a sudden stopped both locally and on host. Thanks for any help.