google account login for the first time displays error - authentication

Question

I am trying to login the user with google account in my application. I am having a problem when the user is logged in for the first time with google account in my app it shows this error:
Argument 1 passed to Illuminate\Auth\Guard::login() must implement interface Illuminate\Auth\UserInterface, null given
In my controller I have this:
public function loginWithGoogle() {
// get data from input
$code = Input::get('code');
// get google service
$googleService = Artdarek\OAuth\Facade\OAuth::consumer("Google");
if (!empty($code)) {
// This was a callback request from google, get the token
$token = $googleService->requestAccessToken($code);
// Send a request with it
$result = json_decode($googleService->request('https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/userinfo'), true);
$user = User::whereEmail($result['email'])->first(['id']);
if (empty($user)) {
$data = new User;
$data->Username = $result['name'];
$data->email = $result['email'];
$data->google_id = $result['id'];
$data->first_name = $result['given_name'];
$data->last_name = $result['family_name'];
$data->save();
}
Auth::login($user);
return Redirect::to('/');
}
// if not ask for permission first
else {
// get googleService authorization
$url = $googleService->getAuthorizationUri();
// return to facebook login url
return Redirect::to((string) $url);
}
}
I know the problem is with Auth::login($user); as insert is performed at the same time with Auth::login($user); and it doesn't find data from database for the first time, but I don't know how to avoid this error and instead redirects to the main page even when the user is logged in for the first time. After this error the user is logged in, but how to avoid this?

Answer 1

Without knowing whether the rest of the code works, you definitely have a problem here:
if (empty($user)) {
$data = new User;
(...)
$data->save();
}
Auth::login($user);
When you're done creating your user, the $user variable is still empty. Your user is actually called $data. You should either rename the variable, or do the login with $data instead. Hopefully, that's enough to make the code work. :)