Laravel didn't remember login

Question

I use the manual authentication in Larave, here is my function of code

public function doLogin(){
  // create our user data for the authentication
  $userdata = array(
    'username' => Input::get('username'),
    'password' => Input::get('password')
  );

  // attempt to do the login
  if (Auth::attempt($userdata,true)) {
    return (Auth::check() ? 'true' : 'false');
  }
  else {
    // validation not successful, send back to form
    return (Auth::check() ? 'true' : 'false');
  }
}

After logging in, the Auth::check returned true. But after browsing to protected routes, which have this construct function

public function __construct()
{
  $this->middleware('auth');
}

the middleware redirects me to the login page again, even after login.

Auth middleware has never been modified. Are there any modifications I needed to do?

I also tried my custom middleware:

class LoginCheck
{
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
      if (!Auth::check()) {
          if ($request->ajax() || $request->wantsJson()) {
              return response('Unauthorized.', 401);
          } else {
              return redirect('login');
          }
      }
        return $next($request);
    }
}

Still not working, means Auth::check() is returning false .

Cookies are configured to store session, and still not working, too.

Answer 1

This is weird, but...

I created a new Laravel project. Copied all the MVC and routes (only that) but excluding everything about auth . Then I did php artisan make:auth , and it worked, and I have literally no idea why.

Seems like I must have messed with something really, bad.

By the way, thanks for all the help!