Database doesn't exist when php artisan migrate

I migrated my local laravel 5 project onto my AWS ec2 lamp Ubuntu server. http://ift.tt/1q8yx0U but it shows

InvalidArgumentException in SQLiteConnector.php line 34: Database does not exist.

I have the database.php set for sqlite

'default' => 'sqlite',
'connections' => [
    'sqlite' => [
    'driver'   => 'sqlite',
    'database' =>  storage_path().'/database.sqlite',
    'prefix'   => '',
],

I have my .env file as

 APP_ENV=local
 APP_DEBUG=true
 APP_KEY=mykeystring
 DB_CONNECTION=sqlite
 CACHE_DRIVER=file
 SESSION_DRIVER=file

I created the database.sqlite file in the storage directory and gave it 777 permissions

when i run

 php artisan migrate

i get the error

 [InvalidArgumentException]
  Database does not exist.

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