Auth functionality not working

This appears to have been asked before, however none of the suggested methods in those posts have resolved the issue for me.

What I have done so far:

1. Have run make:auth command, which has created the auth subfolder, controllers and has added the line Auth::routes(); to web.php, among other things.
2. @guest line in app.blade.php works correctly and shows Login, Register links in the navbar.

3. The login link reads like this:

   <a class="nav-link" href=""></a>
   
   

   This line correctly launches 'http://localhost/public/login' but instead of showing default Login page content, it shows Laravel error page saying Sorry, the page you are looking for could not be found.

4. LoginController's constructor gets hit when I load I load index page.

5. route list command shows the following route among several others:

   GET|HEAD    login   login   App\Http\Controllers\Auth\LoginController@showLoginForm web,guest
   
   

6. I have made multiple modifications to .htaccess file, copying the content from different accepts answers on SO. I have also tried empty .htaccess file.
7. I have run config:cache and view:clear commands too.

Are there any other things anyone would suggest?

I'm using VSCode + XAMPP + Laravel 5.6. I have run migrations correctly on MySQL database and have got users table created.

via Chebli Mohamed