NPM skipped publication but the version has never been published

Question

I know that NPM prevents publication over previously unpublished versions, but the thing is my version has never been published in the first place, therefore it hasn't been unpublished either.

I tried to publish version 12.0.0 and received the dreaded Skipping publication as version 12.0.0 has already been published.. As you can see in the result of the npm view @oblique/oblique time command below (sorted by tag for convenience), version 12.0.0 has never been published. Another thing that is bothering me in this data, is that no modification has been attempted at the modified time, which I assume to be the last modification on the package. The failed publication occurred at 2024-10-08T20:43:20.260Z.

I did publish a 12.0.0-rc.1 though, but pre-versions don't count as a real version, do they? I already published multiple pre-versions in the past and it never did. The only difference is that this time the pre-version was lowercased, could that be the cause? All pre-versions, including 12.0.0-rc.1, have been published under the next tag and all regular ones, including 12.0.0, under the latest one, if that plays a role.

Even if I'm pretty sure the solution is to simply bump the version to 12.0.1, I still need to understand why NPM refuses this version otherwise the same problem will occur again in the future. So any insight would be helpful.

{
    '4.0.0': '2019-08-14T14:18:19.680Z',
    '4.0.1': '2019-08-15T05:14:41.371Z',
    '4.0.2': '2019-09-17T06:48:38.107Z',
    '4.0.3': '2019-09-26T06:16:51.303Z',
    '4.1.0': '2019-10-15T05:48:35.276Z',
    '4.1.1': '2019-10-18T12:35:18.834Z',
    '5.2.0': '2020-10-05T12:50:39.531Z',
    '5.2.1': '2020-11-03T12:33:22.899Z',
    '5.2.2': '2021-10-04T11:59:22.899Z',
    '5.1.0-RC.1': '2020-07-17T11:53:50.495Z',
    '5.1.0-RC.2': '2020-07-23T17:16:47.788Z',
    '5.1.0-RC.3': '2020-08-19T13:03:21.898Z',
    '5.0.0': '2020-03-03T13:03:07.017Z',
    '5.0.1': '2020-03-04T14:57:54.067Z',
    '5.0.2': '2020-03-09T10:25:06.474Z',
    '5.0.3': '2020-03-11T14:58:56.573Z',
    '5.0.4': '2020-03-25T14:26:12.648Z',
    '5.0.5': '2020-04-28T12:40:00.128Z',
    '5.1.0': '2020-08-24T07:25:30.862Z',
    '5.1.1': '2020-09-21T20:33:01.427Z',
    '6.0.0-RC.1': '2021-01-26T23:05:02.412Z',
    '6.0.0-RC.2': '2021-01-29T22:55:31.786Z',
    '6.0.0': '2021-02-02T19:33:57.212Z',
    '6.0.1': '2021-02-15T17:44:46.654Z',
    '6.1.0': '2021-03-31T13:39:36.188Z',
    '6.1.1': '2021-04-08T10:29:33.218Z',
    '6.1.2': '2021-04-23T14:27:40.665Z',
    '6.1.3': '2021-04-30T15:16:07.281Z',
    '6.1.4': '2021-05-07T13:19:25.965Z',
    '6.1.5': '2021-06-03T15:50:41.762Z',
    '7.0.0-RC.1': '2021-07-06T21:01:07.906Z',
    '7.0.0-RC.2': '2021-07-17T00:49:13.545Z',
    '7.0.0': '2021-07-20T16:17:50.533Z',
    '7.0.1': '2021-07-26T08:56:11.042Z',
    '7.0.2': '2021-08-21T11:06:38.943Z',
    '7.0.3': '2021-08-27T15:39:44.074Z',
    '7.0.4': '2021-09-15T12:42:01.294Z',
    '7.1.0': '2021-10-15T09:02:24.461Z',
    '7.1.1': '2021-10-20T11:51:06.565Z',
    '7.1.2': '2021-11-03T15:09:04.210Z',
    '8.0.0-beta.1': '2021-12-24T14:52:08.722Z',
    '8.0.0-RC.1': '2022-01-14T15:17:37.342Z',
    '8.0.0': '2022-01-25T13:31:12.822Z',
    '8.0.1': '2022-02-14T10:59:11.652Z',
    '8.1.0': '2022-04-01T13:46:18.358Z',
    '8.1.1': '2022-04-14T09:48:18.176Z',
    '8.2.0': '2022-05-19T06:07:20.250Z',
    '8.2.1': '2022-05-20T12:36:00.995Z',
    '8.2.2': '2022-06-20T09:38:19.772Z',
    '8.2.3': '2022-07-28T12:49:12.655Z',
    '8.2.4': '2022-10-11T05:38:13.543Z',
    '9.3.0': '2022-10-28T12:56:29.280Z',
    '9.3.1': '2022-11-25T14:09:56.710Z',
    '9.3.2': '2022-12-16T08:06:02.119Z',
    '9.0.0-RC.1': '2022-07-08T07:59:52.182Z',
    '9.0.0': '2022-07-15T13:01:42.210Z',
    '9.0.1': '2022-07-22T11:39:08.965Z',
    '9.0.2': '2022-07-29T11:25:54.659Z',
    '9.1.0': '2022-07-29T13:14:02.578Z',
    '9.1.1': '2022-08-05T08:56:07.979Z',
    '9.1.2': '2022-08-12T08:36:21.764Z',
    '9.1.3': '2022-08-19T07:29:08.157Z',
    '9.1.4': '2022-08-26T11:51:43.357Z',
    '9.1.5': '2022-09-02T11:46:47.538Z',
    '9.2.0': '2022-09-02T15:28:48.456Z',
    '9.2.1': '2022-09-16T11:08:33.093Z',
    '9.2.2': '2022-09-23T15:41:41.017Z',
    '9.2.3': '2022-10-07T13:10:41.080Z',
    '9.2.4': '2022-10-14T11:27:36.325Z',
    '9.2.5': '2022-10-28T09:12:17.011Z',
    '10.0.0-RC.1': '2023-02-02T15:09:37.325Z',
    '10.0.0': '2023-02-17T14:01:08.196Z',
    '10.0.1': '2023-03-30T12:20:40.328Z',
    '10.0.2': '2023-04-14T12:37:53.254Z',
    '10.1.0': '2023-04-28T13:10:30.469Z',
    '10.1.1': '2023-05-12T09:55:28.982Z',
    '10.1.2': '2023-06-07T10:51:22.278Z',
    '10.2.0': '2023-08-31T14:33:48.546Z',
    '10.3.0': '2023-11-07T10:41:25.590Z',
    '10.3.1': '2023-12-22T12:42:40.871Z',
    '11.0.0-alpha.1': '2023-08-28T05:18:17.151Z',
    '11.0.0-alpha.2': '2023-11-10T11:15:57.960Z',
    '11.0.0-beta.1': '2023-12-20T13:17:07.873Z',
    '11.0.0-RC.1': '2024-02-02T15:00:31.000Z',
    '11.0.0-RC.2': '2024-02-15T19:19:21.864Z',
    '11.0.0-RC.3': '2024-02-21T08:06:57.056Z',
    '11.0.0': '2024-02-22T19:44:28.070Z',
    '11.0.1': '2024-04-02T15:57:24.583Z',
    '11.0.2': '2024-04-12T11:32:13.039Z',
    '11.0.3': '2024-04-19T09:02:39.422Z',
    '11.1.0': '2024-04-26T11:38:23.484Z',
    '11.1.1': '2024-05-03T08:15:01.788Z',
    '11.1.2': '2024-05-17T12:39:28.718Z',
    '11.1.3': '2024-05-24T12:04:59.764Z',
    '11.2.0': '2024-05-31T11:32:05.964Z',
    '11.2.1': '2024-06-07T10:30:08.038Z',
    '11.2.2': '2024-06-14T08:57:59.060Z',
    '11.2.3': '2024-06-14T15:37:18.917Z',
    '11.2.4': '2024-06-28T10:16:09.937Z',
    '11.3.0': '2024-07-05T09:04:45.665Z',
    '11.3.1': '2024-07-12T07:38:31.035Z',
    '11.3.2': '2024-07-19T09:02:23.837Z',
    '11.3.3': '2024-08-30T10:31:40.889Z',
    '11.3.4': '2024-10-01T12:01:30.037Z',
    '12.0.0-rc.1': '2024-09-29T12:39:14.960Z',
    created: '2019-08-13T15:33:25.223Z',
    modified: '2024-10-07T12:31:49.357Z'
}