Better DEBUG option ?

PowerShell Help
1

I wrote a program to update AlternateEmail of some users in Office 365. I created a csv import file, and run this through the following lines:

Import-Csv -path "users.csv.txt" -Delimiter ";" | foreach {
    $m = $_.AlternateEmailAddresses
    $e = $_.EmailAddress
    $w = "set-MSOlUser -UserPrincipalName $e -AlternateEmail $m"   # there is no -whatif, so to test before running, do a write-host $w
    if [$m -ne ""] {
        set-MSOlUser -UserPrincipalName $e -AlternateEmail $m
    }
}

It did run almost right with the input of 500 users. There was just one error:
[blockquote]set-MSOlUser : Invalid value for parameter. Parameter Name: OtherMail.
At line:7 char:9

  •     set-MSOlUser -UserPrincipalName $e -AlternateEmail $m

  •     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    • CategoryInfo : OperationStopped: [:] [Set-MsolUser], MicrosoftOnlineException
    • FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automation.PropertyValidationException,Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automa
      tion.SetUser
      [/blockquote]
      Just one line in de input line is wrong, only which one ? It would be very helpful if the full line is outputted with expanded variables. I could use -verbose, but that will result in a lot of logging. I just want the complete line where the error occurred, not all those lines where it goes well.
      How can I accomplish this easily ? Is there some extra debug option I don’t know of ?
2

Hi,

After your line “set-MSOlUser -UserPrincipalName $e -AlternateEmail $m” you can test if it was completed successfully checking variable $? for being true or false.
$? returns true or false for every last command executed.

set-MSOlUser -UserPrincipalName $e -AlternateEmail $m
If ($? -eq $false) {Write-Host "$_"}

Hope this helps.

3

Yes, would also suggest doing a Write-Output with the variable names before the set-MSO1User command to see what $e and $m are to allow you to find out the specific one that is causing the problem.

4

You should look to introduce some error handling using try catch.

try {
    set-MSOlUser -UserPrincipalName $e -AlternateEmail $m
}
catch {
    Write-Warning "Error processing user $e".   
}

If the command in the try block generates a terminating error, the script will jump to the catch block. In the catch block you can handle the error however you see fit. In the example, it just writes a message to the console, $e will be expanded because the double quotes are used. Instead of writing to the console you could write to a log file.

Not every error is a terminating error so if you find the catch block is never entered you may need to use -ErrorAction Stop with the command to force a terminating error.

5

The try-catch with -erroraction did the trick. One email address had a space at the end of the field.
Would it not be nice if powershell wrote the complete command to the error/warning output, with expanded variables ?

Thanks a lot for the tips.