Using custom middleware redirects me to / home even if Laravel is empty

I am now out of almost any ideas.

The thing is, I have a route for the API endpoint (works fine, responds with JSON, etc.).

If I have now applied the "auth" middleware firmware to the route, I am ALWAYS redirected to the / home route. It looks like I am doing this. wrong with auth? I am wrong because:

This curious redirect also works if I am not using "auth" but custom middleware that contains NOTHING, but

public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
    print "WTF";
    throw new AuthenticationException('Unauthenticated.');
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

[print and exception are never thrown! I will land again without error in / home.]

Not all middleware generates this error: for example, "auth.basic" and "web" just work fine with this route.

I also applied "web" and my own middleware as a route, according to some results I found and said that using "web" solves similar problems for them, but guess what, nothing has changed.

TL: DR: If I am using my own middleware or 'auth', I am redirected, BEFORE AFTER THE SEQUENCE.

Update: After messing around with the code and the large type from mnies, I found this very curious Bug:

If I just uncomment the AuthenticationException , suddenly my code is working as intended. Maybe loading Exception-Class is calling RedirectIfAuthenticated Middleware ?! - which is definitely called!

Easy solution now using a different exception for my custom middleware, but the problem is that by default "auth'-MW" also uses this exception and raises the same Bug.

Remember: I am not using other middleware, not just its own, does the error actually load an Exception like WTF?

So I still need help as to why this is happening!

Error: using

throw new AuthenticationException('Unauthenticated.', []);

      

        
        
        
      

    

invokes the "guest" -MW (RedirectIfAuthenticated) prompt instead of the intended MW stack! (nothing from the original MW stack is executed, regardless of order.

Update 2: It seems that RedirectIfAuthenticated is being thrown just because I redirected to the / login route earlier (and from there, as described in / home through it), but that doesn't change the problem that caused this random redirect.

[I am trying to reproduce this error on a fresh install]

Update 3: I was unable to reproduce the error on a fresh installation using Laravel 5.4.19 .... Trying to compare both installations now. D:

Using Laravel 5.3.30.

Some of my code for context:

Route:

Route::get('/admin/user/get', ['middleware' => ['simpleauth', 'web'], 'uses' => 'UserEditAdmin\Controllers\Controller@get']);

      

        
        
        
      

    

Custom middleware:

class SimpleAuth
{

    public function __construct(){}

    /**
     * Handle an incoming request.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
     * @param  \Closure $next
     * @return mixed
     * @throws AuthenticationException
     */
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        print "WTF";
        throw new AuthenticationException('Unauthenticated.');
    }
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

'web' from Kernel.php:

protected $middlewareGroups = [
    'web' => [
        \App\Http\Middleware\EncryptCookies::class,

     \Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\AddQueuedCookiesToResponse::class,
        \Illuminate\Session\Middleware\StartSession::class,
        \Illuminate\View\Middleware\ShareErrorsFromSession::class,
        \App\Http\Middleware\VerifyCsrfToken::class,
        \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\SubstituteBindings::class,
    ],

    'api' => [
        'throttle:60,1',
        'bindings',
    ],
];