Powershell Start-Job not executing scriptblock - powershell

Question

The title says it all i have a Start-Job with a script block that instead of executing the commands it output the info about the job.
The order in which this gets executed is the following
$location = $(Get-Location).toString()
$oldModulePath = $env:PSModulePath
$env:PSModulePath = $env:PSModulePath + ";" + $location + "\LongitudePowershellModules"
$env:PSModulePath
$configXML = [xml](Get-Content $location"\InstallationConfig.XML")
$config = $configXML.root
Import-Module CreateComponentsFolder -PassThru
Import-Module CreateTransferFolder -PassThru
Import-Module ConfigureDB -PassThru
Import-Module FastProxyTools -PassThru
Import-Module WspTools -PassThru
Import-Module CopySharepointPowershellXML -PassThru
Import-Module SearchCenterTools -PassThru
Import-Module ConfigureFAST -PassThru
# 1 - CreateComponentsFolder
CreateLongitudeComponentsFolder -currentLocation $location
And the module with the start-job
function CreateLongitudeComponentsFolder
{
Param(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$True, Position=1)]
[string]$currentLocation
)
$scriptBlock = {Write-Host "Copying files to '"C:\Program Files\Ba-insight\Longitude Fast Component"'"`
Copy-Item $currentLocation"\Longitude Fast Component" "C:\Program Files\Ba-insight\Longitude Fast Component" -recurs`
}
Start-Job -ScriptBlock $scriptBlock -ArgumentList $currentLocation -Name "CopyingFiles"
$scriptBlock = {$fileAndFolderList = Get-ChildItem $currentLocation"\Longitude Fast Component" -recurs
$targetLocationFileAndFolderList = Get-ChildItem "C:\Program Files\Ba-insight\Longitude Fast Component" -recurs
$timer = new-object System.Timers.Timer
$timer.Interval = 500 #0.5 sec
$timer.AutoReset = $true
$itemsPresent = $fileAndFolderList | Measure-Object
$action = {foreach($item in $fileAndFolderList)`
{`
if($itemsPresent -ne 0)`
{`
if($targetLocationFileAndFolderList.IndexOf($item) -ne -1)`
{`
$itemsPresent = $itemsPresent - 1`
}`
else`
{`
$itemsPresent = $fileAndFolderList | Measure-Object`
}`
}`
else`
{`
$timer.stop()`
}`
}`
}
Register-ObjectEvent -InputObject $timer -EventName Elapsed -Action $action | Out-Null
$timer.Enabled = $true
}
Start-Job -ScriptBlock $scriptBlock -ArgumentList $currentLocation -Name "CheckingFiles"
Wait-Job -Name "CheckingFiles"
Write-Host "All files have been copied."
}
I don't get any errors but instead of executing the commands it writes the following for both start-jobs
HasMoreData : True
StatusMessage :
Location : localhost
Command : Write-Host "Copying files to '"C:\Program Files\Ba-insight\Longitude Fast Component"'"`
Copy-Item $currentLocation"\Longitude Fast Component" "C:\Program Files\Ba-insight\Longitud
e Fast Component" -recurs`
JobStateInfo : Running
Finished : System.Threading.ManualResetEvent
InstanceId : 70ab6414-0ca4-467e-b283-20057e4141ad
Id : 1
Name : CopyingFiles
ChildJobs : {Job2}
Output : {}
Error : {}
Progress : {}
Verbose : {}
Debug : {}
Warning : {}
State : Running
It probably has to do with how i wrote the script blocks but i cannot figure out what is different from all the other examples I've seen.
Also is it possible to have a start-job wait for user input using the read-host command?
EDIT: I found the problem with why the job was not executing. The parameter was not being passed correctly. Here is a link for where i found the solution.
Passing parameters to start-job
The last example works and you have to do it like that even for a single parameter.
I still do have one question. The stuff i wrote above still gets outputed to the console. Is there any way to suppress unwanted output from the start-job cmdlet?

Answer 1

I think you need to include the parameters in the script block so that you can pass that down to the job using the argumentlist parameter, as it stands I believe $currentLocation will be null in the script block.
So you need something like this in your script blocks:
$scriptBlock = {
param([string]$currentLocation)
$source - Join-Path -Path $currentLocation -ChildPath "Longitude Fast Component"
$destination = "C:\Program Files\Ba-insight\Longitude Fast Component"
Write-Host "Copying files to [$destination]"
Copy-Item $source $destination -recurse
}