2.72.4 serverless-state issue

I have an older project on serverless v 2.4.0 that needed to redeploy an aws lambda function.
The error that popped up:
An error occurred: CustomDashresourceDashexistingDashs3LambdaFunction - Resource handler returned message: "The runtime parameter of nodejs12.x is no longer supported for creating or updating AWS Lambda functions. We recommend you use the new runtime (nodejs18.x) while creating or updating functions.

Makes sense. A bit of digging around and i updated to v 2.72.4 as this seemed to have been fixed in that version.

Now I’m seeing:
` Serverless Error ----------------------------------------

No serverless-state.json file found in the package path you provided.`

I dont have anything else to go on and if the only solution is to update the entire project to Serverless 3.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated

Was able to generate the state file using serverless v2.4.0. Then, modified the runtime for CustomDashresourceDashexistingDashs3LambdaFunction to use nodejs16.x and kicked off the deploy again and it worked.