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?

WiX projects usually don't contain any packages, you should skip them from restore — Pavel Anikhouski, Jan 17 '20 at 10:01
make sense to share your project references and restore command — Pavel Anikhouski, Jan 17 '20 at 10:09
If you don't have any nuget packages and target in `wixproj`, you can simply suppress this warning using this line `1503`, or in build tab of your proect — Pavel Anikhouski, Jan 21 '20 at 09:52
@PavelAnikhouski: We have added the code 1503 into the supression-field of the wix-project, but the warning still appears. — Simon, Jan 22 '20 at 10:23
@Simon Same. In the OP case and in mine, nuget is running on the build server (Azure in my case) — Steve, Feb 21 '20 at 16:17

m0sa · Answer 1 · 2022-01-25T11:20:33.320

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.

The warning is generated by the WarnForInvalidProjectTask:
... which are generated by the _FilterRestoreGraphProjectInputItems target...
... which calls a _IsProjectRestoreSupported target, if there is one.

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. — steve, Dec 20 '22 at 01:25

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 04 '23 at 12:47

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"

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

2 Answers2

TL;DR

Detailed explanation