Deployments stall at UNKNOWN forever — only a new project's first deploy builds - Help

Next.js 16 project on the Hobby plan. I've been fighting this for a few weeks and the only workaround I've found is recreating the whole project, so hoping someone has seen it before.

Expected: each deploy builds and either reaches Ready or fails with an error. Current: only the very first deploy of a freshly created project builds (Ready in ~1-2 minutes). Every deploy after that gets stuck at "UNKNOWN" status with no build duration and never resolves. I've left them 15-20 minutes and they never move to Ready or Error. vercel inspect only shows status UNKNOWN and a created timestamp, no logs. It happens regardless of how I trigger the deploy:

vercel deploy (source)
vercel deploy --prebuilt (built locally, skips Vercel's build step entirely)
vercel deploy --prod --force
pushing to the connected GitHub repo The part I can't explain is that --prebuilt also stalls. If the build step is skipped and it still hangs at UNKNOWN, it doesn't look like a build problem — it looks like the deploy queue or state machine getting stuck on the project itself.

Steps:

Create a fresh project and deploy. The first deploy builds and reaches Ready in 1-2 minutes.
Make any change (or none) and deploy again — by any method: vercel deploy, vercel deploy --prebuilt, vercel deploy --prod --force, or a push to the connected GitHub repo.
The new deployment sits at UNKNOWN status with no build duration and never resolves (Ready or Error). Left it 15-20 minutes with no change.
vercel redeploy on the already-built first deployment works, but only rebuilds existing code, so it can't ship changes.
The only reliable fix is deleting the project and recreating it (re-adding the domain and ~40 env vars). That allows exactly one good deploy, then it locks again. Configuration:

No custom Build, Install, or Output Directory commands (framework defaults).
Root Directory: default.
vercel.json contains only cron entries, nothing build-related.
Same source builds fine as a fresh project's first deploy, which rules out the code/config.

Project information (URL, framework, environment, project settings)

Production URL: app.rankedgeo.com
Project: rankedgeo-dashboard (prj_NVLhT4BSjbJ75bR5Kft5j4Ynhrtu)
Team: ben-corbetts-projects (Hobby plan)
Framework: Next.js 16.2.4
Node version: 24.x
Vercel CLI: 54.14.1
Build / Install / Output: defaults (none overridden)
Reference deploys (today): g0yzvcwvv, d2k3c6zn1 = Ready; o5vifi5bu, gvxbe1nl5, mi7wsnbyr = stuck at UNKNOWN

Hi Ben,

I agree with your read that this probably is not a normal Next.js build failure. The strongest clue is that vercel deploy --prebuilt stalls too. If the build output is already created locally and the deployment still stays at UNKNOWN with no build duration or logs, that points more toward deployment initialization/project state than app code, dependency install, or the Next.js build itself.

I’d make the repro as clean as possible with one deploy sequence:

vercel pull --yes --environment=production
vercel build --prod
vercel deploy --prebuilt --prod --debug
vercel inspect <deployment-url-or-id> --logs --wait
vercel list --limit 10

If vercel build --prod finishes locally but the prebuilt production deploy still creates a deployment that never leaves UNKNOWN, that is useful evidence that the problem is after build artifact generation.

One small thing: I’d avoid posting raw project/team IDs publicly. They are not tokens, but they are still account-specific identifiers and probably do not need to be in the public thread.

For Vercel staff/support, the cleanest summary would be:

Fresh project first deploy: READY
Second deploy from same source: UNKNOWN forever
Also reproduces with: vercel deploy --prebuilt --prod --debug
No build duration or logs shown by vercel inspect
Affected deployment IDs + timestamps:

Recreating the project may work around it, but if every new project allows exactly one good deploy and then gets stuck again, I would not treat that as the real fix.