Its a zero width character or byte order Mark (BOM)
Try copying the the contents of the file, paste it into notepad then copy and paste it back again.
What editor do you use, and did you use a different editor when you first created the files?
Be part of JetBrains PHPverse 2026 on June 9 – a free online event bringing PHP devs worldwide together.
Hey there,
This is my first post on here, i am not new to development but i am new to the world of laravel. I was following along day 4 of the learn laravel video series when i encountered the following issue.
Layout.blade.php
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport"
content="width=device-width, user-scalable=no, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, minimum-scale=1.0">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="ie=edge">
<title>Document</title>
<script src="https://cdn.tailwindcss.com" ></script>
</head>
<body class="h-full">
//REPLACED THIS PART TO SAVE SPACE
//TAILWIND DASHBOARD COPY PASTE tailwindui website/components/application-ui/application-shells/stacked
//TWO VARIABLES {SLOT , HEADING}^^
</body>
</html>```
about.blade.php
<x-layout>
<x-slot:heading>
About
</x-slot:heading>
<h1>Welcome to the about page</h1>
</x-layout>
contact.blade.php
<x-layout >
<x-slot:heading>
Contact
</x-slot:heading>
<h1>Welcome to the contact page</h1>
</x-layout>
home.blade.php
<x-layout>
<x-slot:heading>
Home
</x-slot:heading>
<h1>Welcome to the home page</h1>
</x-layout>
of the 3 pages, only 1 loads correctly, the home.blade.php. The other two display a strange gap at the top of the page presenting as a white bar.
I would think the way the templating works and the code is, all should look the same.
However after doing some digging i found that the broken ones (about and contact) all have this strange artifact when i open dev tools that when deleted in dev tools makes the issue go away."" on top of the body. whats strange is, the home.blade.php file does not show this in dev tools when inspected.
ive searched for this symbol in my IDE and have not found it anywhere. im not sure what is causing this behaviour.I wish i could post pictures on here to show, but im not sure how to.... not sure if this is a noob question. but i promise web dev is my day job.
thank you
Please or to participate in this conversation.