Why does localtunnel not work when there is a redirect defined for a route in Laravel?

Question

These devices are all on the same LAN:

• Ubuntu server
• Win 10 PC
• iPhone
• Android

On the Ubuntu server, the /etc/hosts file has:

127.0.0.1       rcw.lt

Also on the Ubuntu server, there is a Laravel app hosted by nginx: server_name rcw.lt;.

The / homepage route of my rcw.lt app uses a redirect (see https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/redirects and https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/helpers#method-redirect).

I run lt --port 80 --local-host rcw.lt &.

What does NOT work:

• When browsing from Win 10 or iPhone or Android to the URL generated for the rcw.lt app (such as https://fat-tiger-93.loca.lt), it always tries to redirect to https://rcw.lt (and says ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED).

What works:

• I can browse to the provided generated URL and append a specific path onto it (such as https://fat-tiger-93.loca.lt/some-specific-route), and it works. Or I can remove the redirect from the / route (which I don't want to do).

Any ideas?

Is this a problem with how Laravel redirects work? Or a problem with localtunnel? Is there a workaround?

I really appreciate your help. :-)