Verify complex smart contract with Hardhat help

Question

I have a smart contract that imports from open zeppelin contracts. I have having some trouble verifying the contract through Hardhat. The contract compiles and is deployed on goerli testnet but i get this error when running this command:

Hardhat Command:

npx hardhat verify --network goerli 0x70adB5B0A27da42CE765B44d638b7475aAb8Cf97

Error Message:

An unexpected error occurred:

[Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Users/MY_USER_NAME/Desktop/mammoth/artifacts/build-info/1f140c6c1844d1ec9261b1789241547f.json'] { errno: -2, code: 'ENOENT', syscall: 'open', path: '/Users/MY_USER_NAME/Desktop/mammoth/artifacts/build-info/1f140c6c1844d1ec9261b1789241547f.json' }

Here is my smart contract:

SPDX-License-Identifier: UNLICENSED
pragma solidity ^0.8.17;

import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/ERC721.sol";
import "hardhat/console.sol";

// inherit from ERC721 openzep contracts
contract OneOfAKind is ERC721 {

    constructor(string memory name, string memory symbol) 
        ERC721(name, symbol) {

            console.log("Token Name:", name); // show when tests run
            console.log("Token Symbol:", symbol); // show when tests run
            console.log("Sender's Address:", msg.sender); // shows sender address
    }
}

Here is my Hardhat.config.js file script:

require("@nomicfoundation/hardhat-toolbox");
require("@nomiclabs/hardhat-etherscan");
require("dotenv").config();

/** @type import('hardhat/config').HardhatUserConfig */
module.exports = {
  solidity: "0.8.17",
  networks: {
    goerli: {
      url: process.env.NODE_ENDPOINT,
      accounts: [process.env.PRIVATE_KEY]
    }
  },
  etherscan: {
    apiKey: process.env.API_KEY
  }
};

Answer 1

First make sure you have the plugin to do this properly installed, f its not installed use this command to do so: npm install --save-dev @nomiclabs/hardhat-etherscan If that was properly installed follow the next steps:

1. Delete the artifacts by using npx hardhat clean
2. Compile to regenerate the artifacts npx hardhat compile
3. Try to verify again.