the same repo on vercel publishes without issue, same code base, branch and env vars. i think this is a nixpack issue

To test my theory this is nixpack specific and not my app, i also just tested a build on digital ocean, no issue. ✓ Compiled successfully

There's something going on with the "New Builder" and New Runtime "V2". Enabling "New Builder" may succeed the build but if you're using a database, there are issues with reading new data!

Has this been resolved? would love to use nextjs on railway.

You can deploy NextJS sites with nixpacks on Railway just fine, for example, this very help station is NextJS running on Railway that was deployed with nixpacks, same for our documentation site, also NextJS with nixpacks.

I'm not sure I know how to use nixpacks, should I just deploy a nextjs starter repo and it will work? or any template I need to use?

You should just deploy your own app, if there are issues, you can open a detailed help thread post about it.

so are there any specific apis I can't use from next? such as next image or something? I'm building a separate server using hono/drizzle on railway for apis vs next api routes. although curious if next api routes work?

This help station is a next app deployed on Railway, I stand by my last statement, just try it!