# Get-MgUserPhotoContent returns zero-length file **URL:** \ **Category:** PowerShell Help\ **Created:** [April 25, 2025, 3:02pm UTC](https://forums.powershell.org/t/get-mguserphotocontent-returns-zero-length-file/25740 "2025-04-25T15:02:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DougAtBHB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@DougAtBHB](https://forums.powershell.org/u/DougAtBHB)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 3:02pm UTC](https://forums.powershell.org/t/get-mguserphotocontent-returns-zero-length-file/25740/1 "2025-04-25T15:02:03Z")
I have a PowerShell script that, for every user in our domain, pulls the photo down to the file system. For the vast majority it works fines. For some users, it returns a zero-length file despite them having a valid profile photon. To handle this, I check the file length and if zero, sleep a little and try again. It sometimes takes 5 to 10 attempts to get a non-zero-length file. Although I can get through them all, this unnecessary sleeping makes the script run very long. Below is the line of code that calls Get-MgUserPhotoContent. Any help would be appreciated. `Get-MgUserPhotoContent -UserId $userId -OutFile "$PhotoFilePath" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable Err` ---
**Author:** ![grey0ut](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.powershell.org/grey0ut/32/5310_2.png) [@grey0ut](https://forums.powershell.org/u/grey0ut)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://forums.powershell.org/t/get-mguserphotocontent-returns-zero-length-file/25740/2 "2025-04-25T17:54:31Z")
Hello and welcome to the forum. Please remember when you’re posting any kind of code to use the Preformatted Text option to properly format your code: [Guide to Posting Code](https://forums.powershell.org/t/guide-to-posting-code/14928) Just for clarification, you’re running the line as you shared correct? Suppressing errors? Are there any errors that occur when the output file results in a 0-byte file? I see running a loop against all my team members that while it successfully downloads the photo for each one (over multiple attempts) it generates an error each time ```auto Get-MgUserPhotoContent_Get: Line | 3 | Get-MgUserPhotoContent -UserId $user -OutFile $file | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Cannot set percent because PercentComplete cannot be greater than 100. (Parameter 'value') Actual value was 2147483647. ``` Regardless this doesn’t seem to create an issue. Can you share some more details about **when** this fails on your end? ---
**Author:** ![DougAtBHB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@DougAtBHB](https://forums.powershell.org/u/DougAtBHB)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 7:33pm UTC](https://forums.powershell.org/t/get-mguserphotocontent-returns-zero-length-file/25740/3 "2025-04-25T19:33:23Z")
The only errors I get when receiving a zero-length file are: > Cannot set percent because PercentComplete cannot be greater than 100. (Parameter ‘value’) Actual value was 2147483647. That happens with all successful photo calls, hence the “SilentlyContinue” option. ---
**Author:** ![grey0ut](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.powershell.org/grey0ut/32/5310_2.png) [@grey0ut](https://forums.powershell.org/u/grey0ut)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://forums.powershell.org/t/get-mguserphotocontent-returns-zero-length-file/25740/4 "2025-04-25T20:04:40Z")
Alright I tried to play along a little more on my own. Made an array of about 3600 users and looped through them to pull their picture down. Ended up with approximately 1800 photos. My loop had a `Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 300` in it so this ended up taking over 35minutes. Despite that there were 5 photos that were saved as 0-byte files, and upon retrying those users each one successfully downloaded a picture. I suspect that this is some kind of rate limiting behavior on Microsoft’s end that we’re not going to get around. ---
**Author:** ![DougAtBHB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@DougAtBHB](https://forums.powershell.org/u/DougAtBHB)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://forums.powershell.org/t/get-mguserphotocontent-returns-zero-length-file/25740/5 "2025-04-25T20:11:36Z")
Thanks for your reply and for testing this and confirming my experience. I have a while loop that attempts up to 10 tens sleeping 15 seconds in between. So far, it hasn’t gone beyond 10 attempts. I thought about rate limit issues, but from what I read you should get the following error when that occurs: HTTP 429 “Too Many Requests” error. I coded in some sleep time between calls to avoid hitting that rate limit. I have never received that error. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/powershell/original/1X/385e4f9fe133561ad30a814262fe0e0ae6bc3ef0.png) [@system](https://forums.powershell.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 8:12pm UTC](https://forums.powershell.org/t/get-mguserphotocontent-returns-zero-length-file/25740/6 "2025-05-25T20:12:26Z")
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