HardhatError: HH110: Invalid JSON-RPC response received: missing token when deploying to Görli (Gorli/Goerli) testnet

Question

Summary

When I run yarn hardhat run scripts/deploy.js --network goerli, the following error is displayed in my terminal:

HardhatError: HH110: Invalid JSON-RPC response received: missing token

    at parseJsonResponse (/home/parallels/workspace/hardhat-simple-storage/node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/util/jsonrpc.ts:47:11)
    at HttpProvider._fetchJsonRpcResponse (/home/parallels/workspace/hardhat-simple-storage/node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/core/providers/http.ts:206:31)
    at processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:96:5)
    at HttpProvider.request (/home/parallels/workspace/hardhat-simple-storage/node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/core/providers/http.ts:84:29)
    at ChainIdValidatorProvider._getChainIdFromEthNetVersion (/home/parallels/workspace/hardhat-simple-storage/node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/core/providers/chainId.ts:33:17)
    at ChainIdValidatorProvider._getChainId (/home/parallels/workspace/hardhat-simple-storage/node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/core/providers/chainId.ts:17:25)
    at ChainIdValidatorProvider.request (/home/parallels/workspace/hardhat-simple-storage/node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/core/providers/chainId.ts:55:29)
    at EthersProviderWrapper.send (/home/parallels/workspace/hardhat-simple-storage/node_modules/@nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers/src/internal/ethers-provider-wrapper.ts:13:20)
    at getSigners (/home/parallels/workspace/hardhat-simple-storage/node_modules/@nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers/src/internal/helpers.ts:45:20)
    at getContractFactoryByAbiAndBytecode (/home/parallels/workspace/hardhat-simple-storage/node_modules/@nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers/src/internal/helpers.ts:288:21)
error Command failed with exit code 1.

Details

I am currently running a node by following the instructions outlined in go-ethereum's README file:

INFO [TIMESTAMP] IPC endpoint opened                      url=/home/parallels/.ethereum/goerli/geth.ipc
INFO [TIMESTAMP] Generated JWT secret                     path=/home/parallels/.ethereum/goerli/geth/jwtsecret
INFO [TIMESTAMP] WebSocket enabled                        url=ws://123.4.5.6:7890
INFO [TIMESTAMP] HTTP server started                      endpoint=123.4.5.6:7890 auth=true prefix= cors=localhost vhosts=localhost

Next, I have added this to my hardhat.config.js as follows and already have GOERLI_RPC_URL defined in my .env file, and just for kicks, tried to adjust the URL to the different values shared above (i.e. tried the IPC endpoint, the HTTP endpoint with and without prepending http://).

const GOERLI_RPC_URL = process.env.GOERLI_RPC_URL
const PRIVATE_KEY = process.env.PRIVATE_KEY

module.exports = {
    defaultNetwork: "hardhat",
    networks: {
        goerli: {
            url: GOERLI_RPC_URL,
            accounts: [PRIVATE_KEY],
            chainId: 5,
        },
    },
    solidity: "0.8.17",
}

Any suggestions on what I could be doing wrong here? yarn hardhat run scripts/deploy.js --network hardhat runs just fine, and I have yet to see a similar question asked regarding this specific issue.