Slow to start an powershell script with no internet - powershell

I run a Powershell script on a computer that has no Internet connection. But it takes about 30 seconds to start it. How do I solve it?
I have run ngen.

There is a known issue with certificate revocation list checks and .NET (which PowerShell is built on). Check out this post about the .NET issue.

Sounds like it might be trying to do a DNS lookup, and waits for it to time-out. I presume it doesn't take ~30 seconds to start on a machine with internet connection? You could try setting a bogus DNS resolver on the working machine, and see if it takes ~30 seconds there too.

Related

The HTTP request to the remote WebDriver server timed out after 60 seconds. Happens only when running through the task scheduler

I'm troubleshooting an Selenium script that runs through the Task Scheduler on a Windows Server. It's running in PowerShell using version 3.0.1 of the Selenium module (found here:https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/Selenium/3.0.1) with the Edge browser (the one with Chromium).
The "The HTTP request to the remote WebDriver server for URL [localhost] timed out after 60 seconds." error has been quite persistent and only appears when run through the Task Scheduler. The script runs fine when running manually through ISE.
Also to note, there's another script that is more or less the same as the one having the issue, albeit using a slightly different url (same site). This second script runs without issue through the task scheduler. They're performing the same sequence of actions which is why I'm not entirely sure why it would fail for one script but not the other.
I haven't found a suitable solution while looking at other posters facing the same issue. Any help is much appreciated!
I had the same issue. I tried all kinds of code changes but the only step that worked for me was to change the Security Options in Task Scheduler.
Task (right-click) > Properties > General > Switch from Run whether user is logged on or not to Run only when the user is logged on.
I guess this would be a temporary solution. I'll keep looking and update this if I find a better solution.

Determine if users can RDP after Windows Update

I'm automating windows updates for a set of SQL servers, mostly running on Windows Server 2016. Typically after you install updates you have to reboot, and there is a period of time after rebooting where the server is applying updates and users can't remote into the server. In my automation, I would like to wait until that period of time is over before reporting a successful update. Is there an indicator that I can check remotely through powershell that will determine whether a user can remote in?
I've checked the main RDP services (termservice, SessionEnv and UmRdpService) during this period and they are all running, so if there's some sort of indicator, it isn't them. Maybe there is a field somewhere that states that windows is applying updates? All of the servers are virtualized through VMWare if it matters.
Thanks for reading!
How about testing the port that the remote desktop service listens on?
test-netconnection server -port 3389
I didn't have any luck on ServerFault either, but I did eventually find a solution myself, posting here in case anyone finds this thread looking for help.
The isn't actually a service that changes states when you can RDP back into a server; that's probably determined somewhere in the windows code and there's no way you could find the flag. However, the TIWorker program runs after a reboot to install windows, and in my experience recently, when that exe completes, you can RDP 100% of the time, which is good enough for my automation.
I loop over this piece of code in 5 second intervals until it returns 0 rows, then finish.
Get-Process -ComputerName $server | ? {$_.ProcessName -match 'TiWorker'}

Wait for system to sync time before performing another task

I'm using a Raspberry Pi, and upon startup it's sending an e-mail with the time and an IP address. The problem is that the time is not correct, it's the time from last time the system was shut down. When I log in through ssh and do a date command, I get the correct time. In other words, the e-mail is sent before the system has updated its time.
I was thinking of automatically running ntpdate on boot, but after reading up on it it seems like a bad idea due to the many risks of error.
So, can I somehow wait until the time has been uppdated before continuing in a script?
There is a tool included in the ntp reference implementation for this very purpose. The utility has a rather cryptic name: ntp-wait. Five minutes with the man page and you will be all set.

Windows Service "Starting"

I have a critical windows service that I need for my web application.
Unfortunately, the windows service does not start properly, but remains in a status of "Starting" for about 7 minutes and 38 seconds, and then fails.
My web application works fine when the service is in the "Starting" mode.
I have a windows scheduled task that runs every minute to restart the service if necessary.
net start "my service"
Therefore there is a gap of about 22 seconds from when the service fails until it starts up again. In additional it takes an additional 30 seconds or so for my application (which is dependent on this service) to start working.
I have intentionally not named the errant service. I did open a separate question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8470975/oracle-oc4j-service-keeps-stopping whose aim was to actually solve the problem.
In this question, I am not trying to solve the problem, but rather find a workaround to try and keep this service in a status of "Starting" the whole time.
What is infuriating, is that until I restarted the server today, my workaround of restarting the service every 3 minutes actually worked, with no application downtime whatsoever.
Does anybody have any suggestions? I did try changing the registry key of ServicesPipeTimeout to 86400000 (24 hours!) in a bid to keep the service in the status of "Starting" for longer.
I have found a possible solution to my problem that I am very uneasy about...
I downloaded WinDbg from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=8279
I opened WinDbg and did Attach to Process, and selected my service.
As long as WinDbg is open, it seems to "hold" the process and prevent it from stopping.
How long it will continue to do so, remains to be seen, but it has held for over half an hour now (whereas before the service stopped after 8 minutes)
If you have the timeout set to 24 hours and the service does not start or stay in 'starting' mode , then it must be either crashing or closing itself down.
If you want to try to restarting your service immediately it crashes, then, on the properties of your service, select the 'Recovery' tab. You should be able to set the service to restart on first, second and subsequent failures and set the service to restart after 0 minutes,
Note, this will not work if windows thinks that the service is closing down properly.
It should go without saying that this is a last resort only if you can't get whoever wrote the service to fix the problems.
Try specifying 'Restart the Service' for all three sections on the Recovery tab, but that will only work if the service is ending abnormally.
Our company faced a similar problem and we developed Service Protector, a commercial application that can babysit a service and keep it running 24/7. It may work in your situation too.

Fiddler - Daily stop start

What is the best way to stop/start Fiddler as a daily task?
I am usin Fiddler to monitor/logs https trafficon machine which runs fully automated and runs software which is not controlled by me, but uses https.
My machine stopped yesterday because Fiddler went out of memory after running over 3 days and now I want to have a clean way to start/stop it.
I guess I could just specify a process duration in the task manager, but I would prefer something cleaner, especially to avoid issues when things are started manually.
Just use Scheduled Tasks, they have been part of windows since forever. You should be able to stop fiddler with it too (by calling TaskKill).