[Bug] msalruntime not embed in ClickOnce

[liszto]

Library version used

Azure.Idenity 1.3.0 with following dependancies
-> Microsoft.Identity.Client 4.22.0
-> Microsoft.Identity.Client.Extension.Msal 2.16.5
Microsoft.Indentity.Client.Broker 4.66.2 with following dependancies
-> Microsoft.Identity.Client 4.66.2
-> Microsoft.Indentity.Client.Nativeinterop 0.16.2

.NET version

.NET Framework 4.8

Scenario

PublicClient - desktop app

Is this a new or an existing app?

The app is in production, I haven't upgraded MSAL, but started seeing this issue.
We "didn't update MSAL" but we recently integrated the Broker lib. which seems to lead to this issue

Issue description and reproduction steps

Hello,
in our internal product, we used MSAL for credentials purpose.
Recently, we started to migrate from the browser interactive system to the Broker one.

During all our test in Visual Studio we encountered not a single issue and everything is working. But as soon as we tried to make some test in production environment (so deployment on our server with clickonce), we noticed that our software stays freeze during its starting phase.
When we check on the machine the .IdentityService in "AppData/Local" we can see an infinite attempt of creation on our local msal cache. (looping between ourfile.lock / ourfile.test and then removing them and start again)

We noticed something odd :

• When we look at our local build files we see a "msalruntime.dll" in our project BUT in the project built and deployed through ClickOnce this file seems to be missing... We supposed the issue come from this, any hint on a possible bug ?

We probably could attempt something ugly by copy/paste the needed dll (which is the one from "native/win-x64/msalruntime.dll") inside our project to enforce it into clickonce (I supposed) but if we can get a clean solution it would be great...

Relevant code snippets

No response

Expected behavior

Having something working through the current system using Broker instead of embedded browser.

Identity provider

Microsoft Entra ID (Work and School accounts and Personal Microsoft accounts)

Regression

No response

Solution and workarounds

No response

[liszto]

I found a workaround (for now) :

• We add the nuget package Microsoft.Identity.Client.NativeInterop directly into our "main" csproj. Initially all the Azure calls are made by another csproj linked to this one. Previously we add this package to our Azure csproj but the dll wasn't embed in our main one.
• So after adding this nuget package into our main project. We patch the csproj with a custom code that we already used for another dll that wasn't pack with our build which is this one :

<Target Name="MyAddAdditionalPublishItemsFromDependencies" BeforeTargets="GenerateApplicationManifest">
    <!-- Get items from child projects first. This just fetches data cached by MSBuild -->
    <MSBuild Projects="@(_MSBuildProjectReferenceExistent)" Targets="GetCopyToOutputDirectoryItems" BuildInParallel="$(BuildInParallel)" Properties="%(_MSBuildProjectReferenceExistent.SetConfiguration); %(_MSBuildProjectReferenceExistent.SetPlatform); %(_MSBuildProjectReferenceExistent.SetTargetFramework)" Condition="'@(_MSBuildProjectReferenceExistent)' != '' and '$(_GetChildProjectCopyToOutputDirectoryItems)' == 'true' and '%(_MSBuildProjectReferenceExistent.Private)' != 'false' and '$(UseCommonOutputDirectory)' != 'true'" ContinueOnError="$(ContinueOnError)" SkipNonexistentTargets="true" RemoveProperties="%(_MSBuildProjectReferenceExistent.GlobalPropertiesToRemove)">
      <Output TaskParameter="TargetOutputs" ItemName="_AllChildProjectItemsWithTargetPath" />
    </MSBuild>
    <ItemGroup>
      <!-- Get auto copied DLLs with these references -->
      <_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems KeepDuplicates="false" KeepMetadata="CopyToOutputDirectory;TargetPath" Include="@(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths)" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup>
      <!-- Release memory for huge list -->
      <_AllChildProjectItemsWithTargetPath Remove="@(_AllChildProjectItemsWithTargetPath)" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup>
      <!-- Filter only p4bridge -->
      <_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems Remove="%(_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems.Identity)" Condition="'%(_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems.Filename)' != 'msalruntime'" />
      <!-- Remove items which we already have in the deployment manifest -->
      <_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems Remove="@(_DeploymentManifestFiles);@(_DeploymentManifestDependencies)" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <!-- Replace items in _AllReferenceAutoCopyItems with the items emitted by the AssignTargetPath task that have the TargetPath metadata -->
    <AssignTargetPath Files="@(_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems)" RootFolder="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)">
      <Output TaskParameter="AssignedFiles" ItemName="_Temporary" />
    </AssignTargetPath>
    <ItemGroup>
      <_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems Remove="@(_Temporary)" />
      <_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems Include="@(_Temporary)" />
      <_Temporary Remove="@(_Temporary)" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <!-- And now declare these items as files for deployment -->
    <ItemGroup>
      <_DeploymentManifestFiles Include="@(_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems)">
        <IncludeHash Condition="'%(Extension)' == '.dll'">True</IncludeHash>
        <IsDataFile>false</IsDataFile>
      </_DeploymentManifestFiles>
    </ItemGroup>
    <!-- Remove items which we will never again use - they just sit around taking up memory otherwise -->
    <ItemGroup>
      <_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems Remove="@(_AllReferenceAutoCopyItems)" />
    </ItemGroup>
  </Target>

And after this, we can build our clickonce app and the dll is correctly packed with it.

It's still not a perfect solution but it works...

[ashok672]

There are other higher priority items so closing this for now as there is a workaround

[liszto]

Sorry but for me it's not a viable solution to keep this workaround.

Currently it embed 4 times the dll (one present in our root and 3 for each target folder present in the nuget package) in our project with this "fast" solution. It's probably doable to improve our workaround but we have others things to do too.

So even if you have higher priority items please don't close this one cause it won't be solved otherwise...