anyone seen this error when validating a project?

Details: The neverEmpty field is invalid or not supported.

Its a known bug, and the relevant team has fixed it. We have tested it. Hopefully will be resolved in the upcoming release of tools in August.

good to hear! is there any workaround for it for now?

You can remove this line manually from the xml, should be fine like that.

you mean remove any lines that reference

neverEmpty

?

Yes. But do verify it in a test account if possible before deploying to production. This was conveyed from users that they found it to be a valid workaround.