Powershell extract error from a text file on different computers - powershell

Question

I am trying to extract a list of computer having an error in a specific text file. I did the following :
$computernames = Get-Content C:\PC.txt
foreach ($server in $computernames)
{
$filepath = Test-Path "\\$server\c$\"
if ($filepath -eq "True") {
Get-Content "\\$server\c$\file.log" | Select-String "Error" -quiet | Select-Object $server
}
}
That is returning me the first computer with an error, then only some blank lines in the command window.
If I try to get it in a file with out-file or extract or whatever, I have a blank file.
Thanks in advance for any clue on the matter.
Regards.

Answer 1

There are multiple things you can do with this. Let me tell you first what you are looking for:
So lets say you have an error , in order to capture that you should use try/catch.
Replace :
Get-Content "\\$server\c$\file.log" | Select-String "Error" -quiet | Select-Object $server
With This:
try
{
Get-Content "\\$server\c$\file.log" | Select-String "Error" -quiet | Select-Object $server
}
catch
{
$Error >> ErrorFile.txt
}
Second thing, I would suggest is. Lets say you have 10 computers and the lets assume the 8th one is having some error. But still you do not wish to stop the loop and proceed with the remaining computers of the loop. In that case you should use 2 try/catch like this:
$computernames = Get-Content C:\PC.txt
try
{
foreach ($server in $computernames)
{
$filepath = Test-Path "\\$server\c$\"
try{
if ($filepath -eq "True") {
try
{
Get-Content "\\$server\c$\file.log" | Select-String "Error" -quiet | Select-Object $server
}
catch
{
$Error >> ErrorFile.txt
}
}
}
catch
{
$_.Exception.Message >> Errorfile.txt
}
}
}
catch
{
$_.Exception.Message >> Errorfile.txt
}
So the approach is, if there is any error inside the foreach then the internal catch block will catch it and the error message will be parsed to the errorfile.txt keeping the loop running and will proceed with the remaining computers.
If there is some issue with the main $computernames while getting the content of the file, then it will come to the main catch block with the respective error message parsed and appended in the errorfile.txt
Hope it helps you in understanding the effectiveness of try/catch