Windows PowerShell Script termination

Question

Hi,

Copying files /folders with PowerShell script.
Copy-Item -Force -Recurse -Path Source -Destination
It works fine (usually) but sometimes "stuck" in the execution and never ends. Is there a way to define the maximum execution time, for example, 5 minutes, if it has been 5 minutes or more, terminate the script execution and reboot the machine.

I understand that source and target files will not be the same with the cancellation during the execution, but currently, it's acceptable to have a few files copied compared to a never-ending process.

Answer 1

Start a separate PowerShell process (Start-Process using the -Passthru switch) and save the value in a variable. Then use Start-Sleep -Seconds (5*60). When the launching script awakes, check the status of the process that you started. If it's still running, stop it.

If the 2nd script finishes before 5 minutes you'll still wait 5 minutes, though.

Alternatively, you can create a loop in the launching script that repeatedly waits a few seconds, checks to see if the 2nd script is still running and either exits the loop if the 2nd script is finished or stops the process if the elapsed time is greater than 5 minutes.

Answer 2

Probably the easiest way is to use a background job:

$j = Start-Job -ScriptBlock{Start-Sleep 15}
$b = $j.PSBeginTime
$s = $b.AddMinutes(0.1)							# stop job after this long

while ($true){
    Write-Host "Sleeping"                       # not for production, just for demo
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 10
    $j|Get-Job                                  # not for production, just for demo
    if ($j.State -eq 'Completed'){
        Write-Host "Job completed"              # not for production, just for demo
        break
    }
    if ( (Get-Date) -gt $s){
        Write-Host "Time's up. Stopping job"    # not for production, just for demo
        $j|Stop-Job
        break
    }
}
$j|receive-job
$j|remove-job