Powershell retrieving pipeline errors in C#

Question

Hello,

I'm trying to retrieve errors from executing remote Powershell commands via C#. I'm trying to use this snippet of code as shown here but I do not get the pipeline.Streams property available. Can anyone tell me what is wrong here?

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

using System.Management.Automation;
using System.Management.Automation.Remoting;
using System.Management.Automation.Runspaces;
using System.Security;

namespace O365PS
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string userName = "[e-mail]";
            string password = "Password";

            // Encrypt password using SecureString class
            SecureString securePassword = new SecureString();

            foreach (char c in password)
            {
                securePassword.AppendChar(c);
            }

            PSCredential credential = new PSCredential(userName, securePassword);

            // Connection information object required to connect to the service
            WSManConnectionInfo connectionInfo = new WSManConnectionInfo(
                new Uri("https://ps.outlook.com/powershell"), 
                "http://schemas.microsoft.com/powershell/Microsoft.Exchange", 
                credential);

            connectionInfo.AuthenticationMechanism = AuthenticationMechanism.Basic;
            connectionInfo.MaximumConnectionRedirectionCount = 2;
            
            // Create runspace on remote Exchange server
            using (Runspace runspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(connectionInfo))
            {
                runspace.Open();

                using(PowerShell ps = PowerShell.Create())
                {
                    ps.Runspace = runspace;

                    string[] members = new string[] { "[e-mail]", "[e-mail]",
                                                      "[e-mail]"                        
                    };

                    foreach (string member in members)
                    {
                        Command command = new Command("Add-DistributionGroupMember");
                        command.Parameters.Add("Identity", "test");
                        command.Parameters.Add("Member", member);
                        Pipeline pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline();
                        pipeline.Commands.Add(command);

                        try 
                        {
                            Collection<PSObject> results = pipeline.Invoke();

                            Collection<ErrorRecord> errors = pipeline.Streams.Error.ReadAll(); // Streams property is not available

                             if (errors != null && errors.Count > 0)
                             {
                                 foreach (ErrorRecord er in errors)
                                 {
                                     Console.WriteLine(er.Exception.ToString());
                                 }
                             }
                        }
                        catch (Exception ex)
                        {
                            Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); 
                        }
                    }    
                    
                }
            }
            Console.WriteLine("Operation completed");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hello,

Can anyone help me out on this? This MSDN article says:

Streams: Gets the data streams that contain any messages and error reports that were generated when the pipeline of the PowerShell object is invoked.

But I don't get the Streams property available in Intellisense.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 2

I was able to get the pipeline error as below. For some reason, the ReadToEnd() method always returned a null for me, so I just used the Read() method to get the error.

results = pipeline.Invoke();

if (pipeline.Error.Count > 0)
{
       var error = pipeline.Error.Read() as Collection<ErrorRecord>;
       if (error != null)
       {
           foreach (ErrorRecord er in error)
           {
                Console.WriteLine("[PowerShell]: Error in cmdlet: " + er.Exception.Message);
           }
       }
}

Answer 3

Thanks a lot.This was of great help.

But for me error object was still null.Following snippet worked fine

if (pipeline.Error.Count > 0)
            {
                StringBuilder err = new StringBuilder();
                while (!pipeline.Error.EndOfPipeline)
                {
                    err.AppendLine(pipeline.Error.Read().ToString());
                }
            }

Hope this helps someone

Answer 4

Thanks, this was really helpful for me! I refined & combined both of your snippets, as I looked into it and if it is not an ErrorRecord-Collection, it seems it is an ErrorRecord (I'm throwing the exceptions, feel free to change) :

if (pl.Error.Count > 0) {
                    StringBuilder err = new StringBuilder();
                    while (!pl.Error.EndOfPipeline)
                    {
                        var x = pl.Error.Read();
                        if (x is Collection<ErrorRecord>)
                        {
                            throw (x as Collection<ErrorRecord>).First().Exception;
                        }
                        if (x is ErrorRecord)
                        {
                            throw (x as ErrorRecord).Exception;
                        }
                        err.AppendLine(pl.Error.Read().ToString());
                    }
                    throw new Exception("Error executing PowershellCommand : " +  err);
}

Casting could be optimized (is and as result in double type inspection), but I left it this way as it's not performance critical in my case, and in my opinion is easier to read.