TLDR: if you're creating the next app inside windows file system (eg: /mnt/c/...etc) then DON'T. Use a folder within WSL / Ubuntu file system instead (eg: /home/user/...).

I was looking everywhere online for a solution and all of them was directing me towards adding different options to package.json, but there was no post that talks about making sure that you're not creating the app within windows file system instead of the linux file system. This lead me to a back and forth among many attempts to reinstall everything and lead to no solutions. All I had to do was create the app within the Ubuntu file system instead ( since I am using Ubuntu as my WSL distro ). Hope this post will help someone out!