Prisma Client Integration Issue in Next.js 16

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1

when i deploy my app to vercel, an error message appears in my vercel log

2025-10-28T09:00:21.117Z [error] Unhandled Rejection: PrismaClientInitializationError: Prisma Client could not locate the Query Engine for runtime "rhel-openssl-3.0.x".

This is likely caused by tooling that has not copied "libquery_engine-rhel-openssl-3.0.x.so.node" to the deployment folder.
Ensure that you ran `prisma generate` and that "libquery_engine-rhel-openssl-3.0.x.so.node" has been copied to "node_modules/.prisma/client".

We would appreciate if you could take the time to share some information with us.
Please help us by answering a few questions: https://pris.ly/engine-not-found-tooling-investigation

The following locations have been searched:
  /var/task/node_modules/.prisma/client
  /var/task/node_modules/@prisma/client
  /vercel/path0/node_modules/@prisma/client
  /tmp/prisma-engines
    at ml (/var/task/node_modules/@prisma/client/runtime/library.js:64:805)
    at async Object.loadLibrary (/var/task/node_modules/@prisma/client/runtime/library.js:111:7998)
    at async Qr.loadEngine (/var/task/node_modules/@prisma/client/runtime/library.js:112:448)
    at async Qr.instantiateLibrary (/var/task/node_modules/@prisma/client/runtime/library.js:111:11901)
2025-10-28T09:00:21.122Z [error] Error [PrismaClientInitializationError]: Prisma Client could not locate the Query Engine for runtime "rhel-openssl-3.0.x".

This is likely caused by tooling that has not copied "libquery_engine-rhel-openssl-3.0.x.so.node" to the deployment folder.
Ensure that you ran `prisma generate` and that "libquery_engine-rhel-openssl-3.0.x.so.node" has been copied to "node_modules/.prisma/client".

We would appreciate if you could take the time to share some information with us.
Please help us by answering a few questions: https://pris.ly/engine-not-found-tooling-investigation

The following locations have been searched:
  /var/task/node_modules/.prisma/client
  /var/task/node_modules/@prisma/client
  /vercel/path0/node_modules/@prisma/client
  /tmp/prisma-engines
    at ignore-listed frames {
  clientVersion: '6.18.0',
  errorCode: undefined,
  retryable: undefined
}
2025-10-28T09:00:21.138Z [fatal] Node.js process exited with exit status: 128. The logs above can help with debugging the issue.

I found the solution here:

the problem is not with the prisma application or configuration, but with nextjs 16 ignoring the Prisma binary file ( .so.node) excluded from the deployment package, which causes errors at runtime.

I need to add this code in the config file, and everything is back to normal:

  outputFileTracingIncludes: {

       '/api/**/*': ['./node_modules/.prisma/client/**/*'],

       '/*': ['./node_modules/.prisma/client/**/*'],

   },

If you have the same problem, maybe you can share it here.

1 Like
4

thank you so much, this worked for me. you are a gem :star_struck: