1 00:00:00,100 --> 00:00:03,830 So let's go onto our PowerShell console, 2 00:00:03,830 --> 00:00:05,540 and we'll look at how we investigate 3 00:00:05,540 --> 00:00:07,610 failed jobs by reviewing the current 4 00:00:07,610 --> 00:00:10,990 status of any jobs and then also examining 5 00:00:10,990 --> 00:00:14,540 the reason of why the job failed. So what 6 00:00:14,540 --> 00:00:17,350 I want to talk about now is retrieving the 7 00:00:17,350 --> 00:00:21,200 status and the reason for a potential 8 00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:24,220 failure of a job. Now, to do this, I first 9 00:00:24,220 --> 00:00:26,830 need to create a job. So let me create a 10 00:00:26,830 --> 00:00:31,490 variable, job = Start‑Job. I'll give it a 11 00:00:31,490 --> 00:00:35,940 name. We'll call it FailedJob so we know 12 00:00:35,940 --> 00:00:38,380 what we're looking at. And then in the 13 00:00:38,380 --> 00:00:42,820 ScriptBlock here, I'm going to do 14 00:00:42,820 --> 00:00:44,500 something weird. I'm basically just going 15 00:00:44,500 --> 00:00:50,510 to say New‑Item, so Path, I'm going to use 16 00:00:50,510 --> 00:00:53,800 a drive that doesn't exist, so that's 17 00:00:53,800 --> 00:01:02,110 going to cause me a failure, name 'Failed' 18 00:01:02,110 --> 00:01:11,430 ‑ItemType Directory, and I'll set the 19 00:01:11,430 --> 00:01:16,870 ErrorAction to just Stop. So I'm using two 20 00:01:16,870 --> 00:01:18,820 bits of PowerShell here, one is to start 21 00:01:18,820 --> 00:01:20,980 the job, the second is to try and create a 22 00:01:20,980 --> 00:01:23,950 new items, such as a directory, in a drive 23 00:01:23,950 --> 00:01:25,570 that doesn't exist, and then my 24 00:01:25,570 --> 00:01:27,740 ErrorAction is to just Stop. So I'm going 25 00:01:27,740 --> 00:01:29,550 to kick that off, and then I'm going to 26 00:01:29,550 --> 00:01:31,710 click on my job here, and you'll see that 27 00:01:31,710 --> 00:01:34,670 my background job failed, so we have a 28 00:01:34,670 --> 00:01:37,570 specific FailedJob. Now, we can retrieve 29 00:01:37,570 --> 00:01:40,340 the details about the job. We can also 30 00:01:40,340 --> 00:01:44,970 retrieve the child jobs that initiated. So 31 00:01:44,970 --> 00:01:46,750 you can see here, we've got the FailedJob 32 00:01:46,750 --> 00:01:49,280 and then the job that was kicked off as 33 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:52,170 part of that process. We can also then get 34 00:01:52,170 --> 00:01:55,270 the j+ob state, so I can say 35 00:01:55,270 --> 00:02:00,710 ChildJobState. And notice, when it comes 36 00:02:00,710 --> 00:02:02,450 back, you can't retrieve the specific 37 00:02:02,450 --> 00:02:04,520 value because you actually have to pass 38 00:02:04,520 --> 00:02:05,950 what it is you're looking for, which is 39 00:02:05,950 --> 00:02:08,210 failed, or completed, or something else. 40 00:02:08,210 --> 00:02:10,390 So just be aware, sometimes when you add 41 00:02:10,390 --> 00:02:12,810 the properties, like IncludeChildJob 42 00:02:12,810 --> 00:02:15,040 doesn't require a value, but ChildJobState 43 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:18,550 does, so I can retrieve basic information. 44 00:02:18,550 --> 00:02:21,080 Now, what I can also do is obviously 45 00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:24,570 receive the job kind of details of what 46 00:02:24,570 --> 00:02:27,800 took place. So let me just create a 47 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:31,030 variable called error, and what I'll do is 48 00:02:31,030 --> 00:02:37,410 we'll say, Receive‑Job, and I'm going to 49 00:02:37,410 --> 00:02:48,010 call it job, and it'll come back and say, 50 00:02:48,010 --> 00:02:50,650 New‑Item: Cannot find the drive. A drive 51 00:02:50,650 --> 00:02:53,670 with the name Z does not exist. So we have 52 00:02:53,670 --> 00:02:57,200 our standard message kind of response 53 00:02:57,200 --> 00:02:59,880 back, so I can at least retrieve. 54 00:02:59,880 --> 00:03:01,890 Remember, the Receive‑Job is all about 55 00:03:01,890 --> 00:03:04,950 getting the values that would come back if 56 00:03:04,950 --> 00:03:07,120 the job was successful. Now, what's 57 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:09,900 interesting here is that once we have 58 00:03:09,900 --> 00:03:11,740 retrieved the job, then, of course, there 59 00:03:11,740 --> 00:03:14,320 are other bits of information that are 60 00:03:14,320 --> 00:03:17,040 available to us. So we have the error. So 61 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:20,070 if I say error and just do Enter, what it 62 00:03:20,070 --> 00:03:21,940 does, as you can see, there's a whole 63 00:03:21,940 --> 00:03:24,090 bunch of stuff that kind of comes back and 64 00:03:24,090 --> 00:03:26,440 it says, Cannot override variable Error. 65 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:29,090 It's read‑only, comes back with the Z 66 00:03:29,090 --> 00:03:30,800 error, then something else, something 67 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:33,210 else, and basically spits out a whole 68 00:03:33,210 --> 00:03:36,210 bunch of information around not being able 69 00:03:36,210 --> 00:03:39,410 to get information back from the specific 70 00:03:39,410 --> 00:03:42,880 job. Now, what we can do is there are, 71 00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:45,350 remember the child jobs option, so, for 72 00:03:45,350 --> 00:03:48,920 example, if I say Get‑Job, it gives me the 73 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:51,550 list of jobs, and I can say 74 00:03:51,550 --> 00:03:53,740 IncludeChildJobs, it gives me the list of 75 00:03:53,740 --> 00:03:55,920 the jobs that are there. So if I want to 76 00:03:55,920 --> 00:04:01,340 say Get‑Job ‑ID 16, for example, it's 77 00:04:01,340 --> 00:04:04,260 going to come back with that job itself. 78 00:04:04,260 --> 00:04:06,920 Now, what we can do with the child jobs is 79 00:04:06,920 --> 00:04:10,190 actually go in and retrieve the values of 80 00:04:10,190 --> 00:04:13,520 why the job failed, or at least from the 81 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:15,910 main job too. So if we just go back to 82 00:04:15,910 --> 00:04:20,330 Get‑Job, job is 15 is my unique ID, so I'm 83 00:04:20,330 --> 00:04:27,880 going to say, Get‑Job ‑ID 15, and I'm 84 00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:31,380 going to do a Select statement here, and 85 00:04:31,380 --> 00:04:33,760 I'm going to expand the property called 86 00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:39,300 JobStateInfo. Now, JobStateInfo is a kind 87 00:04:39,300 --> 00:04:42,490 of container field that contains State and 88 00:04:42,490 --> 00:04:45,080 Reason. So what I could do at this point 89 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:47,100 is I could then nest it back down again 90 00:04:47,100 --> 00:04:51,030 and say Select State, and that would give 91 00:04:51,030 --> 00:04:54,210 me the Failed value. If I had a Reason 92 00:04:54,210 --> 00:04:57,230 value, then I could also get the Reason 93 00:04:57,230 --> 00:04:58,770 value, which at this point is actually 94 00:04:58,770 --> 00:05:02,340 empty. So you can be aware that we can 95 00:05:02,340 --> 00:05:06,480 retrieve information around that specific 96 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:09,790 type of message that's there. Now, what we 97 00:05:09,790 --> 00:05:12,300 can also do is if I just create a new 98 00:05:12,300 --> 00:05:14,940 variable called joberror, and I'm going to 99 00:05:14,940 --> 00:05:21,280 say, well, my job, or my error job, or at 100 00:05:21,280 --> 00:05:23,130 least, I think it was in lowercase, that 101 00:05:23,130 --> 00:05:28,840 was my job, I can say ChildJobs and then 102 00:05:28,840 --> 00:05:34,780 obviously pick a 0. What we could also do 103 00:05:34,780 --> 00:05:39,960 is if I just create a new variable, and 104 00:05:39,960 --> 00:05:42,340 we're going to populate it with the job 105 00:05:42,340 --> 00:05:46,730 itself, if I actually say ChildJobs and 106 00:05:46,730 --> 00:05:51,660 pick the first one, I can also get the 107 00:05:51,660 --> 00:05:56,490 JobStateInfo. So joberror, and you'll see 108 00:05:56,490 --> 00:05:59,200 it gives me this kind of state, and now I 109 00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:02,470 get a value in the Reason field as well. 110 00:06:02,470 --> 00:06:04,160 So what that means is that I can actually 111 00:06:04,160 --> 00:06:10,950 say JobStateInfo.Reason.Message. And now 112 00:06:10,950 --> 00:06:14,090 when I go to joberror, I get Cannot find a 113 00:06:14,090 --> 00:06:16,200 drive. A drive with the name Z does not 114 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:18,580 exist. So there are a couple different 115 00:06:18,580 --> 00:06:20,780 ways of retrieving the same information. 116 00:06:20,780 --> 00:06:22,830 The first one, obviously, is to receive 117 00:06:22,830 --> 00:06:24,830 the job, which will give you the results 118 00:06:24,830 --> 00:06:26,960 back, which may or may not give you the 119 00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:29,510 actual error. The second option is to, 120 00:06:29,510 --> 00:06:32,500 obviously, just go and retrieve and use 121 00:06:32,500 --> 00:06:34,520 the Select statement to expand the 122 00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:37,120 property of Job State info, and then 123 00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:39,330 you'll get State and Reason. But if Reason 124 00:06:39,330 --> 00:06:41,570 is empty, then actually, what you'll need 125 00:06:41,570 --> 00:06:44,180 to do is go and do it this way, which is 126 00:06:44,180 --> 00:06:46,690 get the job, the child job, by the unique 127 00:06:46,690 --> 00:06:49,190 Identify here and then go and get the 128 00:06:49,190 --> 00:06:50,900 JobStateInfo, and then you'll get the 129 00:06:50,900 --> 00:06:54,040 reason and the message. So a simple way of 130 00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:57,150 being able to identify the reason why a 131 00:06:57,150 --> 00:07:00,240 specific job failed. Now, of course, we 132 00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:02,250 also have the ability, so if I just get 133 00:07:02,250 --> 00:07:04,510 rid of my job here and just say, 134 00:07:04,510 --> 00:07:13,530 job.ChildJobs and then just do Error, I 135 00:07:13,530 --> 00:07:15,330 can do that same thing. So if there's an 136 00:07:15,330 --> 00:07:17,570 Error on that first job, I get the 137 00:07:17,570 --> 00:07:21,470 message. If I do a second one or a third 138 00:07:21,470 --> 00:07:23,460 one, depending on the unique identifier, I 139 00:07:23,460 --> 00:07:26,200 might get that message back also. So just 140 00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:30,000 a couple of different ways of being able to retrieve that information.