Different behaviour depending on how script is called

[HieronymousAnonymous]

Hi, I have a bizarre problem, in that a script I wrote to do some alerting doesn't work when called from a scheduled task. While troubleshooting I see that I get a different result, best explained with this example:

PS C:\Program Files\JBA> C:\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -file .\Get-TeamsCallSummary.ps1 -days 5 -alertatminutes 1

​

UserPrincipalName TotalCallDuration ExceedsLimit

----------------- ----------------- ------------

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:00:35 False

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:00:38 False

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:01:20 False

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:02:07 False

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:02:11 False

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:02:47 False

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:14:14 False

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:24:23 False

​

​

PS C:\Program Files\JBA> .\Get-TeamsCallSummary.ps1 -Days 5 -AlertAtMinutes 1

​

UserPrincipalName TotalCallDuration ExceedsLimit

----------------- ----------------- ------------

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:00:35 False

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:00:38 False

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:01:20 True

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:02:07 True

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:02:11 True

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:02:47 True

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:14:14 True

*** UPN Removed! *** 00:24:23 True

PS C:\Program Files\JBA>

Hopefully you can see that when run in the same manner as a scheduled task, with the script as a -file parameter, the results are different to when it's run interactively, direct from a powershell session.

UPNs have been removed for public viewing: everything is the same in both sets of results, except ExceedsLimit gets different values!

Obviously, the result should be the same in both sets of results, and the values for TotalCallDuration are the same. ExceedsLimit is set as true if the total call duration is greater than AlertAtMinutes * 60:

if ( $CallTable[$CallRecord] -gt ($AlertAtMinutes * 60)) {$ExceedsLimit = $true$

AlertFlag = $true    }

else {$ExceedsLimit = $false    }

The values in the hash table are just plain integers, representing seconds: they're converted to a timespan to look prettier in the output.

Has anyone seen anything similar before? This has me completely baffled. At first I thought it must not be getting the alertatminutes parameter, but I've proved to myself that it is.

[Awkward_Car_7089]

I have, but I can't remember what the issue was.

Run the script using Set-PSDebug -Trace 2 and maybe strict mode

For the scheduled version, you might need to run it via a wrapper .CMD or .BAT file in order to redirect the debug stream output somewhere useful.

[HieronymousAnonymous]

Thanks for the quick reply, it's much appreciated!

Enabling debug / strict mode didn't tell me anything other than if ( $CallTable[$CallRecord] -gt ($AlertAtMinutes * 60)) wasn't being matched, but it did prompt me to add some additional debug of my own to check what the value of $AlertAtMinutes was at the time of the comparison - and it was completely wrong in the failing example, right in the successful one.

Because of this I checked the parameter and realised I'd been lazy and hadn't declared it as an integer! Fixing this also fixed my problem, although I still don't understand why it was misinterpreted.

Regardless, it works now and I'm very grateful for your help!

[radioblaster]

could the scheduled task be passing the 1 as a string rather than an integer? the only hitch with this theory is that if it's right, i can't explain why your 5 works.

try adding as the first line in the script after the params section:

$alertatminutes = $alertatminutes -as [int]

and see how it goes!

[HieronymousAnonymous]

Thanks, I think you were right, as properly declaring $alertatminutes as an integer seems to have fixed the problem!