vCheck is not running as scheduled task

[Ankoji]

Hi Alan. Need your Help. I am trying to run vCheck as scheduled task. I have created the task in the scheduler to run daily. The task gets started and shows as running and never gives the output. I had to forcefully end the task after 1 hours. Below is how my action window looks in the task scheduler.

My environment:

vCheck v6.25 Powershell 5.1.14409 PowerCLI 6.3 Realease 2 vCenter 6.0 Update3

Aside from this I can run the batch file manually and its working fine and its not asking password during script running . also note schedule task created with same user and running with same user. Batch file contains ( C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -noe -c ".\"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI\Scripts\Initialize-PowerCLIEnvironment.ps1\"";D:\Ankoji_Scripts\vSpherevCheck\vcheck.ps1")

[Ankoji]

Anyone Please help on this issue

[rdlenk]

Had the same issue when trying to run the task under SYSTEM. Set it to use a service account and that got it running.

[gregharms]

-noe as an argument to PowerShell.exe means noexit. Remove it from your task arguments so you don't have to forcibly stop the task.

Other suggestions for vCheck as a scheduled task:

• Run task as the user that has access to vCenter. Store the password in the task (run whether user is logged on or not). (which looks like you're doing...just adding again for completeness)
• Upgrade PowerCLI to current to get the best PowerShell module loading experience so you can drop the "Initialize-PowerCLIEnvironment.ps1" call.
• Just PowerShell.exe in Program/Script works for me on Win2012 (non-R2).
• My arguments: -NoProfile -File "<path>\vCheck.ps1" (I also have -ExecutionPolicy AllSigned because I sign all the *.ps1 files in my vCheck directory. You may need to add -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned)

[Scepticalist]

To troubleshoot this you can amend the vCheck.ps1 as follows: At this point:

$vCheckVersion = "6.25"
$Date = Get-Date

Add this line: Start-Transcript -Path ('c:\PATH-TO-LOG-FILE\vCheckTask.{1:yyyy-MM-dd}.log' -f $env:temp, $Date)

Then at the very bottom of the script add the following:

Stop-Transcript (replace the path as you require)

Examining the log output will probably tell you why it's failing. For me it was failing to log into vCenter as I was running on another server under System

[smohanan1693]

@gregharms Is it possible to run the check using system user? While i execute the script in powershell it works fine also when i schedule the task and run as my user it works fine.. But when i schedule it as task and run as system it fails. Checking the log i could see that it was not login into v-sphere. Could you please help?

[KeithA-Ahern]

I am having an issue getting vCheck to run as a scheduled task. I have a Service Account setup and have given that user Admin rights on the server.
My environment: 2 vCenter currently (Enhanced Linked Mode) vCenter 6.7 vSphere 6.5 PowerCLI 11.5 PowerShell 5.1 Windows 2019

If I run it manually it works as expected. When I try to run it as a Scheduled Task, it says ran successfully, but I get nothing from it. I am sure that where I am having the issue is in the Action part of the task.

Program/Script: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe Add Argument: -c ". \"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\PowerCLI\Scripts\Initialize-PowerCLIEnvironment.ps1\" $true" "C:\PowerShell-Scripts\vCheck-vSphere-master\vcsa-lab\vCheck.ps1"

I have tried changing the Add Argument with the -PSConsoleFile and vim.psc1, but that doesn't work at all.

I am not sure how to get it to run. I don't want to run it manually everyday.

[KeithA-Ahern]

I was able to get it to work by putting it in a batch file and running it.

[meoso]

pardon the necro-bump.

@Scepticalist 's comment was very useful. No matter what i did. my old copy of vCheck failed on Win11 even though it worked on Win10 verbatim for years. Even via exporting/importing the Task Scheduler XML and using the same domain account, the transcript-log reported access denied regardless of task's action methods (batchfile, non-batchfile, privileges, etc.).

To circumvent the problem, I added the following code near the beginning of 00 Initialize/00 Connection Plugin for vCenter.ps1 after setting the normal vCenter $Server variable, which worked:

Connect-VIServer -Server $Server -Protocol https -Force

I cannot determine why 00 Initialize/00 Connection Plugin for vCenter.ps1 is not working as expected as there were no changes whatsoever. It may be the $OpenConnection = $global:DefaultVIServers | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $VIServer } line, but i did not troubleshoot further. Maybe such is obsoleted in newer PowerShell/PowerCLI.

I hope this helps someone in lieu of vCheck being stale (https://github.com/alanrenouf/vCheck-vSphere/issues/746) . or maybe someone might point out some other resolution not thought of. Thank you.

Edit: Pertinent, but should not be a factor, is that my config uses a service-account with local security policy for Log on as a batch file and vCenter read-only rights.