I'm facing issues with configuring Laravel sessions in my application. I've set the session driver to file in config/session.php, and I'm storing session data as follows in my controller:

Session::put('user', $User);
Session::put('role', $Role);
dd(Session::has('user'));

The session is accessible and shows true when I dd() it inside the controller. However, when I try to access the session in my middleware, CheckUser, it always returns false:

public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
{
    // Check if 'user' session exists
    if (!$request->session()->has('user')) {
        return redirect('auth/login');
    }

    return $next($request);
}

In the bootstrap/app.php, I've added the middleware for session handling:

withRouting(
        web: __DIR__.'/../routes/web.php',
        api: __DIR__.'/../routes/api.php',
        commands: __DIR__.'/../routes/console.php',
        health: '/up',
    )->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {
        $middleware->alias([
            'CheckUser' => \App\Http\Middleware\CheckUser::class,
            \Illuminate\Session\Middleware\StartSession::class,
        ]);
    })
    ->withExceptions(function (Exceptions $exceptions) {
        //
    })->create();

However, when I try to access the session in the middleware, it always returns false. I encountered a similar issue before in Laravel 8, where I fixed it by explicitly including the session middleware in app/Http/Kernel.php:

protected $middlewareGroups = [
    'web' => [
        \Illuminate\Session\Middleware\StartSession::class,
    ]
];

Things I’ve Tried:

• I’ve set the session driver to file in config/session.php.
• I’ve added the session middleware in bootstrap/app.php and also in Kernel.php.
• I’ve cleared cache and config cache using php artisan config:clear and php artisan cache:clear.

Additional Information:

• Laravel version: 11.x
• Session driver: file
• Middleware: Custom CheckUser middleware
• Accessing session in a controller works but fails in middleware.

Any suggestions or ideas on what might be wrong and how I can fix this?