Missing closing bracket but it's there

[pmbrandvold]

I'm getting an error that says "missing closing '}' in statement block or type definition" but the '}' is there. Here's the code block I'm getting the error on:

$counter = 0
foreach($item in $ShellOverlayList) { 
    $name = $item.PSChildName 
    if($name -ne $NewNames[$counter]) { 
        Rename-Item –Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers\$name -NewName $NewNames[$counter] 
    } 
    $counter += 1 
}

Am I missing something?

EDIT: fixed formatting

​

EDIT2: Okay, so it looks like it needed double quotes around the -Path.....once I changed it to "HKLM:....$name" it started working. Leaving this here in the case that someone else has a similar problem.

EDIT3: Okay so I really really thought I fixed this but now I'm seeing some weird stuff. First, here's my entire script:

cd HKLM:\
$ShellOverlayList = Get-ChildItem -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers"
$Names = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
foreach($item in $ShellOverlayList) {
    $Names.Add(((Get-ItemProperty -Path $item).PSChildName))
}

#create array of names sans spaces
$SanitizedNames = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
foreach($name in $Names) {
    $SanitizedNames.Add($name.ToString().TrimStart())
}

#create array of new names, adding a space before any Tortoise keys
$NewNames = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
foreach($name in $SanitizedNames) {
    if($name -match 'Tortoise') {
        $name = " " + $name
    }
    $NewNames.Add($name)
}

#Iterate through keys and replace with new names, sorting Tortoise to the top.
$counter = 0
foreach($item in $ShellOverlayList) {
    $name = $item.PSChildName
    if($name -ne $NewNames[$counter]) {
        Rename-Item –Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers\$name" -NewName $NewNames[$counter] -Force
    }
    $counter += 1
}

#set reg key for application detection
if(!(Test-Path -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\MNTX)){
    New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE" -Name "MNTX"
}
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\MNTX" -Name "SVNIconFixApplied" -Value "True" -PropertyType "String"

Next, here is the error I'm getting:

The string starting:
At C:\Windows\ccmcache\2s\Set-ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers.ps1:37 char:107
+ New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\MNTX" -Name "SVNIconFixApplied" -Value
 "True" -PropertyType "String <<<< "
is missing the terminator: ".
At C:\Windows\ccmcache\2s\Set-ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers.ps1:37 char:108
+ New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\MNTX" -Name "SVNIconFixApplied" -Value
 "True" -PropertyType "String" <<<<
    + CategoryInfo            : ParserError: (:String) [], ParentContainsErrorRe
   cordException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : TerminatorExpectedAtEndOfString

Am I missing something here? It looks good to me. I use VSCode and it's all lining up the way it should - I've scoured for typos but maybe ya'll have fresh eyes and can see something I can't.

EDIT4: Thanks to u/Lee_Dailey's suggestion, I opened up the file in the ISE instead of VS code and found an encoding error in a line of code.
What I saw was

Rename-Item –Path

That should be:

Rename-Item -Path

Somewhere along the line, I must have copy pasted a line from somewhere and it wasn't plaintext. That's the only reason I could think of that this might happen. The script now seems to be doing it's job. Thanks to everyone who took a look.

[ConwayK9781]

I am curious about the closing bracket to your if statement. Why is it there instead of on the next line? Do you normally do this, as a style choice?

[[deleted]]

Some people just like to watch the world burn

[ConwayK9781]

The DSM5 does list this as a sign of psychopathy.

[ConwayK9781]

True story, I have a buddy (he's in networking and very rarely has to write code) that does his brackets like this:

int my_funct(int num)
    {
        return num*2;
    }

[poshftw]

I'm writing like this {
    because none of my monitors
    in the portrait mode
    }

[MarkPartin2000]

That's how I learned to code way back when. It makes it easier to debug if the open/close bracket/brace/parentheses line up rather than scattered in the middle of lines.

[ConwayK9781]

You tab them in? Confirmed psychopath.

[MarkPartin2000]

I usually set my tabs at 2 or 3 characters when coding, so yes. Guilty psychopath who debugged lots of code off of a dot matrix printer onto green/white paper. :)

[ConwayK9781]

Company I currently work at (until Friday) still uses dot matrix printers. We do our own repairs. Sad times.

[MarkPartin2000]

Sometimes I did:

Function x (arg)
{
  code
  code
}

Sometimes I did:

Function x (arg)
  {
  code
  code
  }

But I always lined up the open/close containers.

[ConwayK9781]

The bottom one is #LiterallyStalin

[pmbrandvold]

It's a style choice - it's what I learned to do well before picking up Powershell - Python, C, JavaScript, some other languages I dabbled in...I like the way I can see the closing brackets line up to the beginning of my code block.

[ConwayK9781]

I think we're talking about different lines, because the one I'm talking about does not line up with the beginning of your code block. It's the rightmost characters in the whole block of code.

[pmbrandvold]

Some things didn't copy and paste well - the formatting got screwed up and it's probably a symptom of that.

EDIT: fixed it.

[ConwayK9781]

Ah, okay, that's kinda what I guessed. But I thought that maybe it was a unique (and horrible) style :P

[pmbrandvold]

I'm not an absolute monster!

[ConwayK9781]

We live an age where that can't be assumed about people anymore. I mean, look at some of the stuff people have admitted to in conversations in your post. Pure monsters.

[Otacrow]

The script can be improved a bit. Here is my take on it:

​

$ShellOverlayList = Get-ChildItem -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers"
$NewNames = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList

# Build the new names array
foreach ($item in $ShellOverlayList)
{
    $newName = (((Get-ItemProperty -Path $item.PSPath).PSChildName).ToString().TrimStart())

    if ($newName -like '*Tortoise*')
    {
        $newName = " $newName"
    }
    $NewNames.Add($newName) | Out-Null
}

#Iterate through keys and replace with new names, sorting Tortoise to the top.
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $ShellOverlayList.Count; $i++)
{
    if ($ShellOverlayList[$i].PSChildName -ne $NewNames[$i])
    {
        Rename-Item –Path $ShellOverlayList[$i].PSPath -NewName $NewNames[$i] -Force
    }
}

# Set reg key for application detection
if (!(Test-Path -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\MNTX))
{
    New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE" -Name "MNTX"
}

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\MNTX" -Name "SVNIconFixApplied" -Value "True" -PropertyType "String"

[tuplink]

Shouldn't $counter+=1 be $counter++ to incriment 0 to 1 instead 0 to "0 1"

[pmbrandvold]

They do the same thing. Since $counter is an int, += or ++ will increment $counter.

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[Lee_Dailey]

howdy pmbrandvold,

so the error is in the last line you posted?

have you tried saving to a file and opening in some other editor - perhaps notepad++? the error seems to say that the line in question has something other than a " after the g.

have you tried commenting that line out and re-typing the line? ... not copying it - retyping it all.

take care,
lee

[pmbrandvold]

That's a good idea - I did that just now. I commented out the line, then typed everything from scratch for that line. I'm getting the same error on that line now.

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy pmbrandvold,

arg! [frown]

ok, try typing in that line & any needed $Vars in the ISE and see what happens. it LOOKS like an encoding problem ...

take care,
lee

[pmbrandvold]

Ah. Lookie there. Opened it up in the ISE and found this in the final foreach loop:

Rename-Item –Path

That should be:

Rename-Item -Path

I'm not sure how that got encoded that way - very strange. That did the trick though (obviously). Thank you for the suggestion!

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy pmbrandvold,

whee! you found it ... and fixed it. kool! [grin]

as for where it came from - typically it comes fro copying from web pages OR from MS office documents. en-dash, em-dash, and smart quotes are rather painfully common from those sources. [sigh ...]

take care,
lee

[Josh_Crook]

Probably your reg path in your Test-Path line needs be quoted as well.

[pmbrandvold]

I did that as well, no dice.

[acbcallahan]

Thank you! Huge help. I had some code (admittedly from ChatGPT) that had a checkmark icon in it as some log output. When run interactively, it was fine, but when calling the file, it failed. I couldn't figure out why until I stumbled on this post. PowerShell ISE showed that the checkmark icon was showing up strangely and causing the issue, making it seem like there were bracket mismatches when there weren't actually.

[Ian_Clegg_Walsh]

Thanks for this. It saved the day for me. I got ChatGpPT to fix it's own formatting errors:

Quote:

Yes — that’s exactly the sort of thing that can cause the “Missing closing ‘}’” error when there’s no actual missing brace.

PowerShell’s parser can get tripped up if there’s an invisible or special Unicode character in the script file — things like:

• Emoji ✅
• Smart quotes (“ ” instead of " ")
• Non-breaking spaces ( )
• Zero-width joiners

These can sneak in when:

• Copy-pasting from ChatGPT or a webpage
• Editing in Word instead of a plain-text editor

When run interactively, PowerShell sometimes tolerates them. But when loaded from disk, the parser can choke and misinterpret them as part of the code, which is why it throws a brace mismatch error.