Laravel 5.2 Login not working

I have created a new Laravel 5.2 installation. And I have run the following command to install the default Laravel authentication;

php artisan make:auth

The registration form works but the login just redirects home without logging in. And displays no errors when when I enter the wrong credentials.

This is my routes file:

Route::get('/', 'BaseController@index');

Route::get('/tutors', 'TutorsController@Index');
Route::get('/tutors/myrequest', 'TutorsController@RequestTutor');
Route::get('/tutors/{id}', 'TutorsController@show')->where(['id' => '[0-9]+']);
Route::get('/tutors/{GUID}', 'TutorsController@TutorByGUID')->where(['id' => '[A-Za-z]+[0-9]+']);


/********************Authentication routes**********************************/
Route::group(['middleware' => ['web']], function () {
    Route::auth();
});

This is code from the AuthController:

class AuthController extends Controller
{
use AuthenticatesAndRegistersUsers, ThrottlesLogins;


protected $redirectTo = '/';

public function __construct()
{
   $this->middleware($this->guestMiddleware(), ['except' => 'logout']);
}

/**
 * Get a validator for an incoming registration request.
 *
 * @param  array  $data
 * @return \Illuminate\Contracts\Validation\Validator
 */
protected function validator(array $data)
{
    return Validator::make($data, [
        'firstname' => 'required|max:255',
        'lastname' => 'required|max:255',
        'email' => 'required|email|max:255|unique:users',
        'password' => 'required|confirmed|min:6',
    ]);
}

/**
 * Create a new user instance after a valid registration.
 *
 * @param  array  $data
 * @return User
 */
protected function create(array $data)
{
    return User::create([
        'firstname' => $data['firstname'],
        'lastname' => $data['lastname'],
        'email' => $data['email'],
        'password' => bcrypt($data['password']),
    ]);
}
}

This is the BaseController which contains the home method;

<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Services\InterfaceService;
use App\Repositories\TutorRepository;
use App\Http\Requests;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class BaseController extends Controller {

    protected $TutorRepository;


    protected $InterfaceService;
    public function __construct(InterfaceService $InterfaceService, TutorRepository $TutorRepository)
    {
        //$this->middleware('guest');
        $this->InterfaceService = $InterfaceService;
        $this->TutorRepository = $TutorRepository;
    }

    public function index()
    {
        $tutors = $this->TutorRepository->all();
        $page_info = \Config::get('constants.App.Pages.home');
        $this->InterfaceService->SetPageInfo($page_info);
        return view('home', ['TopTutors'=>$tutors]);
    }

} ?>

This is code from the login view.

<form role="form" method="POST" action="{{ url('/login') }}" id="login_form">
    {!! csrf_field() !!}
    <div class="mj_login_form">
        <div class="form-group">
            <input type="text" placeholder="Email" id="email" name="email" class="form-control" value="{{ old('email') }}">
            @if ($errors->has('email'))
                <span class="help-block"><strong>{{ $errors->first('email') }}</strong></span>
            @endif
        </div>
        <div class="form-group">
            <input type="password" placeholder="Your Password" id="password" class="form-control" name="password">
            @if ($errors->has('password'))
                <span class="help-block"><strong>{{ $errors->first('password') }}</strong></span>
            @endif
        </div>
        <div class="row">
            <div class="col-lg-6 col-md-6 col-sm-12 col-xs-12 mj_toppadder20">
                <div class="form-group  pull-left">
                    <div class="mj_checkbox">
                        <input type="checkbox" value="1" id="check2" name="remember">
                        <label for="check2"></label>
                    </div>
                    <span> remember me</span>
                </div>
            </div>
            <div class="col-lg-6 col-md-6 col-sm-12 col-xs-12 mj_toppadder20">
                <div class="form-group pull-right">
                    <span><a href="{{ url('/password/reset') }}">forget password ?</a></span>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
    <div class="mj_pricing_footer">
        <a href="#" onclick="$('#login_form').submit()">login Now</a>
    </div>
</form>

That happens because your '/' route is not under the web middleware group and you're not using the auth middleware for the routes you want to be authenticated

This means that when accessing that route, session is not available, and the auth middleware doesn't fire, so authentication doesn't work.

Try to put all the routes in which you want to use session under the web middleware group, and for the routes in which you want authentication use the auth middleware:

Route::group( ['middleware' => ['web'] ], function () {     

    /* these routes use 'auth' middleware, so only an authenticated user will access*/
    Route::group( ['middleware' => 'auth' ], function () {
        Route::get('/', 'BaseController@index');
    });

    Route::auth();
});

A Note on Laravel version:

Keep in mind that if you're using Laravel version >= 5.2.27 the middleware web is used by default on every route defined in routes.php as you can see in app/Providers/RouteServiceProvider.php:

protected function mapWebRoutes(Router $router)
{
    $router->group([
        'namespace' => $this->namespace, 'middleware' => 'web'
    ], function ($router) {
        require app_path('Http/routes.php');
    });
}

In that case you can remove you statement for using the web middleware group, but you'll only need to use auth middleware for the authenticated routes