Can’t create `pages` dir for Firebase Hosting deploy?

I’m using Firebase Hosting to deploy my web app which uses NextJS. In the last deploy in late March 2023 I was able to deploy with the following steps but now I get an error where the pages directory is not found even though I am running the deploy command at the root of the project where pages is.

firebase deploy --only hosting 

But running the Firebase command, the process is successful in initiating other Firebase services.

+  functions: .firebasemyprojectprodfunctions folder uploaded successfully
i  hosting[myprojectprod]: beginning deploy...
i  hosting[myprojectprod]: found 109 files in .firebasemyprojectprodhosting
+  hosting[myprojectprod]: file upload complete
i  functions: updating Node.js 16 function firebase-frameworks-myprojectprod:ssrmyprojectprod(us-central1)...
Build failed with status: FAILURE and message: > [email protected] build 
> next build 
... 
> Build error occurred
Error: > Couldn't find a `pages` directory. Please create one under the project root
    at Object.findPagesDir (/workspace/node_modules/next/dist/lib/find-pages-dir.js:86:19)
    at /workspace/node_modules/next/dist/build/index.js:103:63
    at async Span.traceAsyncFn (/workspace/node_modules/next/dist/trace/trace.js:79:20)
    at async Object.build [as default] (/workspace/node_modules/next/dist/build/index.js:66:29). For more details see the logs at https://console.cloud.google.com/cloud-build/builds;region=us-central1/xxx?project=xxx.

Functions deploy had errors with the following functions:
        firebase-frameworks-myprojectprod:ssrmyprojectprod(us-central1)
i  functions: cleaning up build files...

Issue seems to be with Cloud Functions. I deleted the function created by the deploy command and a new one is created.

firebase.json

{
  "hosting": {
    "source": ".",
    "ignore": ["firebase.json", "**/.*", "**/node_modules/**"],
    "frameworksBackend": {
      "region": "us-central1"
    }
  },
  "firestore": {
    "rules": "firestore.rules"
  }
}

next.config.js

module.exports = withBundleAnalyzer({
  transpilePackages: ["@stripe/firestore-stripe-payments"],
  i18n: {
    locales: ["en"],
    defaultLocale: "en"
  },
  images: {
    remotePatterns: [
      {
        protocol: "https",
        hostname: "storage.googleapis.com",
        pathname: `/my-bucket`,
      },
    ],
  },
  devIndicators: {
    buildActivity: false,
  },
})  

Project directory

pages/
    blogs/
        [blogId].tsx
        blog-index.tsx  
    index.js 
    catalog.tsx 
    login.tsx 
    account.tsx 
    404.js 
    500.js
public/ 
    favicon.ico 
    images/ 
        icon1.png 
themes/

firebase.json 
package.json 
tsconfig.json 
firestore.rules 
firebase.ts 
.env.production 
.env.local 
css/ 
components/ 
    ... 
firebase_utils/ 
    ... 

I’ve tried

• Couldn't find a `pages` directory. Please create one under the project root
• Clean deploy: git clone, npm install, firebase init, firebase deploy –only hosting
• Running firebase experiments:enable webframeworks before deploy command
• Deleting the Cloud Functions function which generates on deploy
• Using the "public": "public" option in the firebase.json since the documentation says it’s required (I don’t think it is)