Auth isn't persistent accross pages in my laravel 5.4 installation. I've read many other posts all of which relate to tinkering with the route middleware however I've not had much luck.

Once logged in, I essentially end up in the re-direct loop because I'm authenticated, re-directed back to my home page, but that home page (via routes) doesn't think I'm logged in so requires me to login again!

routes (web.php)

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

    // Frontpage
    Route::get('/', ['as' => 'home', function () {
        return redirect('audiolibrary');
    }]);

    // AUTH
    Route::get('login', [
        'as' => 'auth.login', 'uses' => 'AuthController@login',
    ]);
    Route::get('logout', [
        'as' => 'auth.login', 'uses' => 'AuthController@logout',
    ]);

});

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

    // AUDIO LIBRARY
    Route::get('audiolibrary', [
        'as' => 'audiolibrary.index', 'uses' => 'AudioLibraryController@index',
    ]);

});

AuthController.php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Auth;
use App\User;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Auth\Authenticatable;

class AuthController extends Controller
{

    public function login(Request $request)
    {

        $code = $request->get('code');
        $googleService = \OAuth::consumer('Google');

        if (!is_null($code)) {
            $token = $googleService->requestAccessToken($code);

            $google = json_decode($googleService->request('https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/userinfo'), true);

            if(User::where('email', '=', $google['email'])->first()){
                $user = User::where('email', '=', $google['email'])->first();
                Auth::login($user);
                return redirect('/');
            } else {
                $user = new User();
                $user->name = $google['name'];
                $user->email = $google['email'];
                $user->save();

                Auth::login($user);
            }
        } else {
            $url = $googleService->getAuthorizationUri();           
            return redirect((string)$url);
        }
    }   

}