Scheduled task always has one hour added for the next run.

Question

I have two PS scripts created. They use New-ScheduledTask and corresponding commands to create two scheduled tasks. The script worked and scheduled tasks are created fine. However, I noticed that next run time always with one more hour added on top of the set time. The tasks are scheduled to run at 12:30am and 12:45am in two different scripts, and both their Next Run Time shown as 1:30am and 1:45am instead of keeping the set times in the scripts. Tried to run the scripts to remove and add the scheduled tasks multiple times, and still the same. Any idea, why?

I will include one of the scripts here. Hope you can help find the trick. Please see the following.

Set the path for the log file

$logFilePath = "C:\IT\Intune-Script.log"

Check if the scheduled task already exists

$scheduledTaskName = "SFC Scan Weekly"

$existingTask = Get-ScheduledTask -TaskName $scheduledTaskName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

if ($existingTask -ne $null) {

# Task already exists, so attempt to remove it

try {

    Unregister-ScheduledTask -TaskName $scheduledTaskName -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction Stop | Out-File -FilePath $logFilePath -Append

    Write-Output "Existing task '$scheduledTaskName' successfully removed."

} catch {

    Write-Output "Error removing existing task '$scheduledTaskName': $_" | Out-File -FilePath $logFilePath -Append

}

}

Set Trigger, Task, Settings

$SFCTrigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -Weekly -DaysOfWeek Wednesday -At 00:30

$SFCAction = New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute "SFC" -Argument "/SCANNOW"

$SFCSetting = New-ScheduledTaskSettingsSet -Compatibility Win8 -AllowStartIfOnBatteries -StartWhenAvailable -DontStopIfGoingOnBatteries

$SFCTask = New-ScheduledTask -Trigger $SFCTrigger -Action $SFCAction -Settings $SFCSetting -Description "SFC Scan Weekly"

Create/Register Scheduled Task

try {

Register-ScheduledTask -TaskPath RASULC -TaskName $scheduledTaskName -InputObject $SFCTask -User "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM" -ErrorAction Stop | Out-File -FilePath $logFilePath -Append

Write-Output "Scheduled task '$scheduledTaskName' successfully registered."

} catch {

Write-Output "Error registering scheduled task '$scheduledTaskName': $_" | Out-File -FilePath $logFilePath -Append

}

Answer 1

The time is stored in UTC so a conversion happens when you give it a local time. Just a guess but validate that the stored UTC time is correct for the machine that is registering the task.

New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -Weekly -DaysOfWeek Wednesday -At 00:30

It should dump the StartBoundary which is what controls the time to execute. It should be in UTC.

Answer 2

@Michael Tayler is correct you need to adjust the time from your local time to UTC.

Something like this should work for you:

$SFCTrigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -Weekly -DaysOfWeek Wednesday -At ((get-date "00:30") + (Get-TimeZone).BaseUtcOffset).ToString('HH:mm')

If you're in the Eastern Time Zone, for example, that would put the scheduled time at 19:30 UTC (a -5 hour offset).

Answer 3

Give this a try:

$Date = Get-Date -Date "00:30"  # You can be more precise by providing the year/month/day and hour, seconds, and milliseconds if necessary
$Trigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -Once -At (Get-Date -Day 1 -Month 1 -Year 1 -Hour 0)    # the place-holder date will be replaced below
$Trigger.StartBoundary = (Get-Date -Date $Date -Format 'HH:mm') # time represents LOCAL time

If that doesn't turn off the synchronization then you may have to resort to guerilla tactics and modify the XML that represents the finished scheduled task (not a difficult thing to do) by removing the leading "T" in the "StartBoundary" property. Or, if you don't want to go that far, you can also use the command line "schtasks" to provide the StartBoundary value.