php 7.1.14 does not work with laravel

Having php 7.1 installed is not the same as running php 7.1. in yourpublic/index.php file write phpinfo(); and check in browser which version of php laravel uses . remove php 5.6 apt-get purge php5.6-common if you like and run these commands

sudo a2dismod php5.6
sudo a2enmod php7.1
sudo service apache2 restart

@rin4ik , just did it PHP Version 7.2.4 , already testing with 7.2.4 , same error

What does php -v say?

php from the command line can be a different version to that running in the web server

The error on that line is being thrown because a null coalescing operator is being used, which was added in php7 and is incompatible with php5. like I said earlier remove all previous versions of php if you won't use them. and enable php 7.1

Route::get('/phpinfo', function() {
    phpinfo();
});

Hit that route. Find the php version number. (delete when done)

Then from cli, php -v. They should both match, or be greater than the minimum requirement (>= 7.1.3).

@crnkovic damit! php -v it says 5.6 :(

sudo apt-get purge php5.6-common

sudo a2enmod php7.2
sudo service apache2 restart

@rin4ik , thank you, I use laragon , I have already installed php 7 there but it probably picks on my globally installed php from xammp

thanks to @rin4ik , @crnkovic , @Snapey , so the problem was that I was running php 5.6 globally