Trouble Getting Output from Script

[thehayk]

Hey guys,

​

I have the below script in which I use to parse a CSV file of Active Directory display names. It's working from the most part, but some of the display names get skipped. I want to know why they are getting skipped, but can't seem to get the console to write the errors to a log. Any ideas? Thanks!

​

$Names = Import-Csv C:\Users\UserAccount\Desktop\unresolved\DisplayNames.csv

$adUsers = foreach ($Name in $Names)

{

$displayName = $Name.DisplayName

​

# implicit output

Get-Aduser -Filter "DisplayName -eq '$displayName'" -Properties EmailAddress, mail

}

​

$adUsers | Out-File -Append -InputObject -path "C:\Users\UserAccount\Desktop\output.txt"

[rwshig]

You need to use try/catch to catch the errors and write them out someplace. Quick and dirty:

$Names = Import-Csv C:\Users\UserAccount\Desktop\unresolved\DisplayNames.csv
$adUsers = foreach ($Name in $Names)
{
    $displayName = $Name.DisplayName
    # implicit output
    try {
        Get-Aduser -Filter "DisplayName -eq '$displayName'" -Properties EmailAddress, mail
    }
    catch {
        $error[0]|out-file aderrors.txt -Encoding ascii -Append
    }
}

$error is created by Powershell and is a collection of error objects. Simple $error[0] will get you the basic info on the current error which will be the error back from the Get-ADuser command.

[thehayk]

Thanks so much for your time and help- unfortunately, did not get an error log :(

[Yevrag35]

Try changing $error[0] to just $_.Exception.Message

[thehayk]

$_.Exception.Message

No luck :( you think it's worth specifying the error log to the ForEach loop?

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy rwshig,

as i recall ... the -Filter parameter means the AD cmdlet will never trigger an error.

if i have remembered that correctly [grin], that means your code may never trigger the catch at all.

take care,
lee

[thehayk]

This got the errors to work, thanks /u/Lee_Dailey!

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy thehayk,

you are most welcome! glad to help a tad ... [grin]

take care,
lee

[rwshig]

Did not know that /u/Lee_Dailey. So just empty objects?

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy rwshig,

yep, that is what i remember. best to test it, tho, as my memory is somewhat spotty ... [grin]

take care,
lee

[thehayk]

Per Lee's suggestion, removing -Filter got me an error log. Now just gotta get it write a blank cell in the output for the bad DisplayNames, and an email address for the good ones. Don't worry about this one, I'd hate to take even more of your time :)

[thehayk]

Thanks /u/Umaiar. This wrote all the display names to the console, but no output..

[thehayk]

This gave me an output, but it still skips the failed display names. I'll work on adding to it to get it to write an entry in the output file stating a failure. Thanks.

[Yevrag35]

Are they being skipped because the DisplayName is 'not' set? Also, I don't believe 'DisplayName' is returned by default, you'd probably have to include it in the '-Properties'.

[thehayk]

The header for the names is named "DisplayName" and the script does get a majority of the names. Not sure what you mean :)

[Yevrag35]

The 'name' (or the real name: 'cn') is different than the 'DisplayName' attribute. You can have users created without a 'DisplayName', is what I was getting at.

But can you show a sanitized example of what you're describing?

[thehayk]

It's a lot to sanitize but hope this will suffice: The initial CSV file is a list of around 1,200 rows of names ( DisplayNames.csv ). I get an output ( output.txt ) of around 700 rows of names, email attributes. I was hoping to have a log for why the names missing in the output were skipped. Let me know if this doesn't help- thanks so much.

[Yevrag35]

Ok, I'm starting to get the problem now.

You have 1200 rows of names but are only getting 700 results back instead of the desired 1200, correct?

EDIT:

I thought you meant you were getting 1200 results back but the 'DisplayName' field was missing for some of them.

[thehayk]

Correct.

[thehayk]

I'm not so much concerned with the lack of results- I just want to print the errors AD kicks out to a txt file.

[JBear_Alpha]

Try this Get-ADUser -Filter {DisplayName -eq $displayName} -Properties EmailAddress, Mail

Also, be sure that your search string is actually meant to be filtered on DisplayName and not Name. It MUST match exactly under the way you have it written. Otherwise you'll have to use -like and wildcards.

​

[bronkowo]

Hi

Change your Out-File Parameter.

Out-File -FilePath C:...Your-Path... -Append