One common error developers face when working with authentication in Next.js and Clerk is the 'Clerk: auth() was called but it looks like you aren't using authMiddleware in your middleware file' message.
The error occurs when the middleware system in Next.js is not correctly configured to route requests through the authMiddleware, causing authentication failures or unhandled routes.
To resolve this error, developers need to verify and update their middleware setup, ensure correct matcher configuration, check API route implementations, test the setup, and handle deployment properly.
Attention to detail in configuring authMiddleware and API routes is crucial for successful authentication setup using Clerk in Next.js TypeScript applications.