nginx domain with and without wildcard - nginx

Question

I have nginx configuration file which has to server example.com and www.example.com.
server {
listen 80;
server_name example.com;
return 301 http://www.example.com$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 80;
server_name www.example.com;
auth_basic "example Login";
auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.htpasswd;
root /projects/www/example;
index index.html;
location ~* \.(html|js|jpg|png|gif|css|perfumes|imgs|map|fonts|otf)$ {
index index.do index.html index.htm;
access_log off;
}
location /.protected {
access_log off;
auth_basic off;
}
location /health {
access_log off;
auth_basic off;
}
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/index.html;
}
location /hello {
proxy_pass http://localhost:8282;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
}
}
I am trying to protect this domain for now, cuz we are preparing the launch. But there is only link which should let the requests pass through without password, if a link has '.protected' in it.
For example,
www.example.com/.protected/file1.txt should be allowed without entering a password.
It is working ok, but the issue is example.com/.protected/file1.txt (without 'www').
If I type only domain name 'example.com' (without 'www'), it automatically redirects to www.example.com as configured, but 'example.com/.protected/file1.txt' doesn't redirect to 'www.example.com/.protected/file1.txt'. It seems if the domain name has some paths, the domain name (without 'www') doesn't redirect to 'www.example.com'
I am getting 'curl: (6) Could not resolve host:'
Is there anything wrong with my configuration file?