Why is debugging Laravel suddenly acting like a toddler?

hey everyone, just finished updating my main SaaS app to the latest Laravel version (don't ask, it was a whole thing). and now, my usual debugging flow is acting like a moody teenager. its driving me absolutely bonkers trying to figure out what's going on under the hood.

the main issue is my dd() statements and Log::info() calls are behaving super inconsistently. one minute they're spitting out data like a firehose, the next, on the exact same request, nothing. it’s making simple laravel debugging tips feel like i'm trying to solve a quantum physics problem with a rubber chicken. sometimes i get this, other times, nada:

// Example 1: Sometimes it shows
[2023-10-27 10:34:01] local.INFO: User 123 accessed dashboard.
// Example 2: Other times, nothing for the same action

i've checked cache, re-ran composer dump-autoload, cleared views, everything i can think of. is there some new setting or quirk i'm totally missing that would make the debug output so erratic? or maybe a conflict i'm not seeing?

anyone faced this before?