Laravel Error: The GET method is not supported for route login. Supported methods: POST.

This is weird, you think, because the codes in your routes/web.php didn’t even mention ‘GET’:

<?php

Route::post('/login', [UserController::class, 'login']);

But you’re still getting an error about ‘GET’. Why?

That is because a ‘GET’ route is missing!

When your login page is first loaded, you want to show a form. Since you’re not getting any input yet, there’s literally nothing in your $_POST.

Laravel sees this and thinks, “OK there’s no POST data, so it must be a GET.” So it goes looking for a GET route, but there’s none.

The solution is to add a GET route with the same path:

<?php

Route::get('/login', function () {
  return view('login-form');
});

Route::post('/login', [UserController::class, 'login']);

Or, you could just use Route::view() to assign a view:

<?php

Route::view('/login', 'login-form');
Route::post('/login', [UserController::class, 'login']);

Or, if you want to handle it inside your controller class, you could use Route::any():

<?php

Route::any('/login', [UserController::class, 'login']);

When Route::any() is used and there’s no user input, you will receive an empty array when you check $request->input():

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class UserController extends Controller
{
  public function login (Request $request)
  {
    if (empty($request->input()) {
      return view("participant-login");
    }

    // form validation and sanitisation goes here
  }
}