Nextjs 13: Can't resolve 'src/app/dashboard/layout.tsx' (deleted optional layout)

So I decided to create a new Nextjs 13.4.5 project with an app directory.

I created a new dashboard directory inside my app directory and then created page and layout component in the dashboard directory. It worked fine, there was two layout component: one was the root layout in the app directory, and the other one is the layout.tsx I created in the dashboard directory

Eventually I decided to delete the layout.tsx in the dashboard directory because I wanted to use only root layout, but an error occurred:

./
Module not found: Can't resolve '/myproject/src/app/dashboard/layout.tsx'

https://nextjs.org/docs/messages/module-not-found

I have searched in my project for any import statements or dynamic imports that reference the deleted dashboard/layout.tsx, but there is no reference

here is my tsconfig file:

{
 "compilerOptions": {
  "target": "es5",
  "lib": ["dom", "dom.iterable", "esnext"],
  "allowJs": false,
  "skipLibCheck": true,
  "strict": true,
  "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true,
  "noEmit": true,
  "esModuleInterop": true,
  "module": "esnext",
  "moduleResolution": "node",
  "resolveJsonModule": true,
  "isolatedModules": true,
  "jsx": "preserve",
  "incremental": true,
  "plugins": [
  {
    "name": "next"
  }
],
"paths": {
  "@/*": ["./src/*"]
}
},
"include": ["next-env.d.ts", "**/*.ts", "**/*.tsx", ".next/types/**/*.ts"],
"exclude": ["node_modules"]
}

The whole problem is that when you create a new directory for a new page if you don't create layout.tsx inside that directory everything works fine.

but if you create a layout component inside that route directory and then delete it, Nextjs won't be able to render that route without its layout component and this is kinda weird.

Is there any way to solve this? because I don't wanna create an useless layout component for my route

I had the exact same issue and deleting the .next folder worked for me! Thanks @imjared for that answer!

Next.JS saves cache on .cache folder on .next folder. When you delete the layout.tsx, the .next thinks that the layout.tsx is still present on the app directory.

Deleting the .next folder will solve the issue.

To take effect immediately, restart your application.

This issue is very annoying because it persists when you push to production...