Cannot find module '.prisma/client/default' #28129

tajbowness · 2025-09-17T23:33:29Z

tajbowness
Sep 17, 2025

Okay, I wanted to share what causes this problem and hopefully a fix, as I've spent a couple hours figuring this out.

Error:

[vite] (ssr) Error when evaluating SSR module virtual:remix/server-build: Cannot find module '.prisma/client/default'
Require stack:
- C:\Users\USER\Desktop\MONOREPO\node_modules\.pnpm\@[email protected]_prisma_d7354b8d13280d54180af8135cd43e10\node_modules\@prisma\client\default.js
- C:\Users\USER\Desktop\MONOREPO\node_modules\.pnpm\@shopify+shopify-app-sessio_0ba38fe50e5bbb6806e830ac35623eb2\node_modules\@shopify\shopify-app-session-storage-prisma\dist\cjs\prisma.js
      at Function._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1383:15)
      at defaultResolveImpl (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1025:19)
      at resolveForCJSWithHooks (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1030:22)
      at Function._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1192:37)
      at TracingChannel.traceSync (node:diagnostics_channel:322:14)
      at wrapModuleLoad (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:237:24)
      at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1463:12)
      at require (node:internal/modules/helpers:147:16)
      at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\USER\Desktop\MONOREPO\node_modules\.pnpm\@[email protected]_prisma_d7354b8d13280d54180af8135cd43e10\node_modules\@prisma\client\default.js:2:6)
      at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1706:14)

Note, after messing around with things in my project, I've seen this message come in different forms, but I believe its the same root issue.

My setup:

pnpm
Monorepo
A package for each app that contains their schema. Re-exports the PrismaClient from prisma/client for their associated apps and other packages to consume.
No custom output set in the schemas for generated PrismaClient

Cause of problem:

The issue was that there were two generated prisma folders in monorepo-root/node_modules/.pnpm, example:

monorepo-root/node_modules/.pnpm/@[email protected]_prisma_123456_1
monorepo-root/node_modules/.pnpm/@[email protected]_prisma_654321_2

I'm unsure as to why there were two. When generating the prisma client for each app it overwrites the other, so it wasn't like a folder is created for each app, which all apps are on the same version via pnpms catalogs.

So when external dependencies required the generated client, it can access the wrong folder thus prompting this error.

Solution:

Delete pnpm-lock.yaml and clear root node_modules
Run pnpm install at the root

Now only one @prisma+client@VERSION_prisma_... should be created in monorepo-root/node_modules/.pnpm.

tajbowness · 2025-09-25T00:28:17Z

tajbowness
Sep 25, 2025
Author

Like to update this as I needed to update my prisma to the latest version to be able to take advantage of the new provider prisma-client, due to some limitations with my worker I needed the ESM support it added.

However, the error returned. So I opted to generating two clients, one with prisma-client-js, and one prisma-client, the prisma-client-js will output the client into its default location in node_modules allowing it to be accessible for external packages that import from that one instead of the custom output.

Schema:

generator appClient {
  provider = "prisma-client-js"
}

generator workerClient {
  provider = "prisma-client"
  output = "./generated/prisma-client"
  moduleFormat = "esm"
}

Then I just export the clients like so:

export {
  Prisma,
  PrismaClient as PrismaClient_Worker,
  ...
} from './prisma/generated/prisma-client/client';

export {
  PrismaClient as PrismaClient_App
} from "@prisma/client";

export * from "./types";

The app uses only the generated PrismaClient, and its external packages will use whatever else from @prisma/client, whilst the worker will use the PrismaClient from the custom output, and both app and worker will use the types from generated output.

Hope this helps.

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tajbowness Sep 17, 2025

My setup:

Cause of problem:

Solution:

Replies: 1 comment

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tajbowness Sep 25, 2025 Author

tajbowness
Sep 17, 2025

tajbowness
Sep 25, 2025
Author