Laravel 11 Fortify: Post-Login Redirect Renders Content Only in Inspector, Not on the Page

It sounds like your login form is being submitted as an AJAX (XHR) request. When Fortify detects an XHR login request, it returns a 200 response with the content instead of performing a full-page HTTP redirect. This is why you see the response data in the console but the browser’s location never updates.

What’s Happening

• AJAX Submission: Your login request is likely sent with an X‑Requested‑With header (or via a JS library like axios), so Laravel Fortify treats it as an XHR request.
• Redirect Behavior: Fortify’s login response checks if the request is via XHR. If so, it returns a 200 status with the intended redirect in the response, expecting your frontend code to pick up the redirect and update the browser location.
• Full Page Request: When you manually enter the URL in the address bar, you perform a full HTTP request and see the view as expected.

How to Fix

Depending on your desired behavior, you have two options:

1. Submit the Form as a Standard HTTP Request

Remove any JavaScript that is intercepting the form submission so that the browser does a full page reload:

HTMLCopied
<form method="POST" action="/login">
    <!-- Your login fields -->
    @csrf
    <button type="submit">Login</button>
</form>

Ensure there’s no JavaScript (like axios or jQuery’s ajax) that hijacks the submission.

2. Handle the Redirect on the Client Side

If you intend to use an AJAX submission, modify your JavaScript to look for a redirect URL in the response and then set window.location. For example, if you use axios:

JSCopied
axios.post('/login', formData)
    .then(response => {
        // If the response contains a redirect URL, navigate there
        if (response.request.responseURL) {
            window.location.href = response.request.responseURL;
        }
    })
    .catch(error => {
        // Handle validation errors, etc.
        console.error(error);
    });

Or if your backend is sending a custom JSON field (like redirect_url), use that value:

JSCopied
axios.post('/login', formData)
    .then(response => {
        if(response.data.redirect_url) {
            window.location.href = response.data.redirect_url;
        }
    })
    .catch(error => {
        console.error(error);
    });

Conclusion

Check your login form’s submission method and any associated JavaScript. If you want the standard redirect behavior (i.e., a full page refresh), ensure the form is submitted normally. Otherwise, if you prefer AJAX, add client‑side logic to perform the redirect based on the response.

This should resolve the issue where the page looks like it’s not updating after a successful login while the response appears in the console.