Skipping restore for project 'SetupWix.wixproj'. The project file may be invalid or missing targets required for restore (NU1503)

Question

We are using Wixtoolset V3.9 to build our setup. We use the following command to start a build:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Current\Bin\msbuild.exe" /restore /t:Rebuild /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=x64 MySolution.sln /p:BabelEnabled=true

We need the parameter /restore to restore the nuget-packagages on our build-server. Since we build our Wix-Setup by MSBUILD 16 we get the following warning:

Skipping restore for project 'SetupWix.wixproj'. The project file may be invalid or missing targets required for restore.

The warning belongs to category NU1503 (whatever this means). We cannot find a way to solve or even suppress this warning. We have tried to suppress it by adding the code NU1503 to the Project-Properties:

Whatever the reason, the warning still appears.

Question: How can we solve or suppress this warning?

Legalism

WiX projects usually don't contain any packages, you should skip them from restore – Leadership

make sense to share your project references and restore command – Leadership

@Pavel Anikhouski: I have added the build-command. – Legalism

If you don't have any nuget packages and target in wixproj, you can simply suppress this warning using this line <SuppressSpecificWarnings>1503</SuppressSpecificWarnings>, or in build tab of your proect – Leadership

@PavelAnikhouski: We have added the code 1503 into the supression-field of the wix-project, but the warning still appears. – Legalism

@Legalism Same. In the OP case and in mine, nuget is running on the build server (Azure in my case) – Bedding

Did you ever find a way to suppress this warning? – Shipworm

related: github.com/NuGet/Home/issues/13748 – Yiddish

Answer 1

TL;DR

You can get rid of NU1503 by including this in your .proj / msbuild file:

  <!-- prevents NU1503 -->
  <Target Name="_IsProjectRestoreSupported"
          Returns="@(_ValidProjectsForRestore)">
    <ItemGroup>
      <_ValidProjectsForRestore Include="$(MSBuildProjectFullPath)" />
    </ItemGroup>
  </Target>
  <Target Name="Restore" />

Source: https://github.com/NuGet/NuGet.Client/blob/537630019c99fdc7bed1b3dfdade72fc3e31692f/src/NuGet.Core/NuGet.Build.Tasks/NuGet.targets#L1286-L1298

---

Detailed explanation

I figured this out by inspecting the msbuild.binlog file via dotnet restore /bl with the awesome MSBuild Binary Log File Viewer tool.

1. The warning is generated by the WarnForInvalidProjectTask:

2. ... which are generated by the _FilterRestoreGraphProjectInputItems target...

3. ... which calls a _IsProjectRestoreSupported target, if there is one.

Corolla

After adding that XML to my project file (.vcxproj) I get build error: C:\code\IVL-Catheter-Programmer\AuthenticatorAccess\AuthenticatorAccess.vcxproj : error MSB4057: The target "_GenerateRestoreGraphProjectEntry" does not exist in the project. ... maybe this solution only works for WIX. – Pyx

Answer 2

The answer by m0sa lead me to a hopefully easier solution. In WarnForInvalidProjectTask there is a check for DisableWarnForInvalidRestoreProjects and you can thereby disable the warning when doing the nuget restore by defining that variable

nuget restore /p:DisableWarnForInvalidRestoreProjects="true"

Select

just to add - this also works for passing it as an argument to dotnet restore – Bivalve