Laravel debugging: need fresh eyes

Hey everyone,

I'm really scratching my head over an issue I've hit while working on a new feature for a client's e-commerce site, which is built on Laravel 9. I'm trying to implement a new order processing flow, and I've run into a really weird database update problem that's driving me nuts. This is definitely one for fresh eyes!

The core problem is that an Eloquent update() call is silently failing for a specific column (status) in the orders table. What's even stranger is that other columns in the exact same update call are persisting correctly to the database. There are absolutely no errors being thrown, either by Laravel or the database, and the application behaves as if the update succeeded, but the status column just doesn't change.

Here's what I've tried so far to debug this:

• Confirmed that 'status' is correctly listed in the $fillable array of the Order model.
• Used DB::listen() to inspect the actual SQL query being executed. The query itself looks perfectly correct and explicitly includes the status update with the new value.
• dd()'d the data array right before the update() call, and it definitely contains the correct new status value (e.g., 'processed').
• Checked for any database triggers or constraints that might be silently preventing the update on that specific column. Found nothing relevant.
• Attempted to use the alternative method: $order->status = 'processed'; $order->save(); instead of update(). The result was exactly the same – silent failure for the status column.
• Scanned both laravel.log and our server error logs extensively. No relevant entries whatsoever related to this particular update or any database issues.
• Cleared all application and config caches (php artisan cache:clear, config:clear) multiple times, just in case.

Here's a snippet to illustrate what's happening:

// Controller snippet for updating an order
$order = Order::find($orderId);
if ($order) {
    $order->update([
        'status' => 'processed', // This specific column IS NOT updating
        'processed_at' => now(), // This updates fine
        'notes' => 'Some notes' // This updates fine
    ]);
}

// Output of dd($order->getChanges()) immediately after update attempt
// []  <-- Indicates no changes were detected by Eloquent

Has anyone ever encountered Eloquent silently failing to update a specific column without throwing any errors or even logging anything? I'm wondering if there are any obscure Laravel/PHP configurations, package conflicts, or even database-level quirks I might be overlooking that could cause such a specific and silent failure. This is really puzzling for a Laravel database debugging scenario.

Help a brother out please...