How do I catch this?

PowerShell Help
1

I’m trying to modify a script that check the size of folders in a particular path, but get an error message when it hits a folder of zero bytes. Is there a way to use a Try Catch to suppress the error message?

Code snippet
$size = (Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Recurse |
WHERE {-not $_PSIsContainer} |
Measure-Object -Sum Length).Sum
Error Message
Measure-Object : The property “Length” cannot be found in the input for any objects.
At line:64 char:13

  •         Measure-Object -Sum Length).Sum

  •         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    • CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:slight_smile: [Measure-Object], PSArgumentException
    • FullyQualifiedErrorId : GenericMeasurePropertyNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.MeasureObjectCommand
      Thanks
      Tony
2

You’ve got a typo. You’re missing a period after the $_. That’s why it’s including folders.

3

Thanks Don…it was actually a huge typo. The error I’m trying to catch is permission denied:
Get-ChildItem : Access to the path ‘C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\WMI\RtBackup’ is denied.
At T:\Scripts\Folders\Get-DirSize.ps1:62 char:18

  •     $size = (Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Recurse |

  •              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    • CategoryInfo : PermissionDenied: (C:\Windows\Syst…es\WMI\RtBackup:String) [Get-ChildItem], Unaut
      horizedAccessException
    • FullyQualifiedErrorId : DirUnauthorizedAccessError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand
4

That’s a non-terminating error. I would tend to use a combination of -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue (to keep the red text off the screen) and -ErrorVariable (to allow your script to handle the error later):

$size = (Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable gciErrors |
            WHERE {-not $_.PSIsContainer} |
            Measure-Object -Sum Length).Sum

foreach ($errorRecord in $gciErrors)
{
    # Do something with the error record.
}
5

Thanks, worked a treat.

6

In your case it might not be important to handle the error right away, but cases where it is you can explicitly tell the Cmdlet to throw a terminating Exception and trigger a try/catch by using -ErrorAction Stop, or by modifying the global $ErrorActionPreference variable.

try { Get-ChildItem 'C:\' -Recurse -ErrorAction Stop } catch [System.UnauthorizedAccessException] { "Unauthorized Access Exception" } catch { "Unhandled Exception" }

If you want to handle specific errors, you can always look at the red error output to see what kind of Exception you’re dealing with, for example:

Get-ChildItem : Access to the path 'C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V' is denied. At line:1 char:1 + Get-ChildItem C:\ -Recurse + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : PermissionDenied: (C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V:String) [Get-ChildItem], UnauthorizedAccessException ## This is your Exception type + FullyQualifiedErrorId : DirUnauthorizedAccessError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand