Next.js Middleware/Proxy redirect loop at /login in Production, but works perfectly on npm start locally

[anshul3212]

Summary

Hi everyone,
I am facing a strange routing issue where my application works flawlessly in local development (next dev) and during local production simulation (npm run build && npm run start). However, once deployed to my production environment(amplify), it breaks with a redirect loop error specifically when handling the /login route.
The Setup:

• Framework: Next.js (App Router)
• Structure: Root page (app/page.tsx) handles a simple fallback redirect('/login').
• Routing Interception: I have configured my file to intercept auth cookies. If a session token exists, users should go to /dashboard. If no token exists, they go to /login.

The Bug:
When i am logged in i go to dashboard and i have make the public pages like /login,/verify-otp etc but when i am logged in and try to go to the login page my middleware is not working and it is going to the login page even if i have to cookies for login the catch is that the middle ware is working on other public routes but not for login only.

Has anyone encountered this specific environment mismatch between local npm start and live hosting environments? Could this be related to Edge runtime deployment restrictions, or how Next.js handles production cookie headers differently than localhost? Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated!

Additional information

No response

Example

No response

[kuldeeprajput-dev]

This looks more like a matcher or Amplify configuration issue than a cookie issue. Make sure /login is included in your matcher and avoid redirecting to the current route:

export function proxy(request: NextRequest) {
  const path = request.nextUrl.pathname
  const token = request.cookies.get("session")?.value

  if (token && path === "/login") {
    return NextResponse.redirect(new URL("/dashboard", request.url))
  }

  if (!token && path.startsWith("/dashboard")) {
    return NextResponse.redirect(new URL("/login", request.url))
  }

  return NextResponse.next()
}

export const config = {
  matcher: ["/login", "/verify-otp", "/dashboard/:path*"],
}

The [Next.js Proxy docs](https://nextjs.org/docs/app/api-reference/file-conventions/proxy) say: “The matcher option allows you to target specific paths for the Proxy to run on.”

Also ensure the session cookie has path: "/". Then check Amplify’s Rewrites and redirects section for a /login or SPA catch-all rule.

One more important point: [Amplify currently documents support only through Next.js 15](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amplify/latest/userguide/ssr-amplify-support.html). If you use Next.js 16 with proxy.ts, the production environment may not fully support it yet.

[anshul3212]

export const config = {
matcher: [
"/",
"/login", // Explicitly monitor the login route
"/((?!_next/static|_next/image|favicon.ico|..(?:svg|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|webp)$).)",
],
};

this is the matcher and also the problem is coming sometime for login only sometime it is working and sometime not and yes i am using next js 16 and also the same problem is not occurring on other public routes and it is only not working on production amplify but working on local(npm run and start)

[kuldeeprajput-dev]

Thanks, the matcher looks fine. Does this happen when using a <Link>, router.push(), or the browser Back button? Next.js [automatically prefetches routes in production](https://nextjs.org/docs/app/guides/prefetching), so /login may be restored from the router/browser cache without a new Proxy request.

Try disabling prefetch for auth links:

<Link href="/login" prefetch={false}>Login</Link>

After successful login, use router.replace("/dashboard") instead of push, then call router.refresh().

Also test /login with a hard refresh. If that redirects correctly, the issue is client-side caching, not the matcher. If it still fails, log request.cookies.has("your-cookie-name") in Proxy without logging the token to verify whether Amplify receives the cookie.

[anshul3212]

import { redirect } from "next/navigation";

export default function Page() {
redirect("/login");
}

this is my login that i have added on root page app/page.tsx
and after successfull login i am doing this router.push("/dashboard");

[icyJoseph]

Do you have any logs or headers you see during the navigation? Often when next build + start diverges from the deployment, we have to look at the layers in between.

Are you able to curl this endpoint while pretending to be logged in as well? Like login, and then in the Chrome Dev tools you can copy a request as curl — https://developer.chrome.com/blog/replay-a-network-request-in-curl — careful with LLM advice too, it often doesn't ask for more context, and over fixates in framework details and such. Let's try to debug this first.