Question

I run a script which performs many WMI-querys – but the cmdlet hangs if the server doesn’t answer..
Is there any way I can make this (or any other cmndlet for that matter) timeout and exit if X seconds has passed?

Edit

Thanks to a tip from mjolinor the solution is to run this as -asjob and set a timeout in a while loop. But this is run from within a job already (started with Start-Job). So how do I know I am controlling the correct job?

This is my code from inside my already started job:

Get-WmiObject Win32_Service -ComputerName $server -AsJob

$Complete = Get-date

While (Get-Job -State Running){
    If ($(New-TimeSpan $Complete $(Get-Date)).totalseconds -ge 5) {
        echo "five seconds has passed, removing"
        Get-Job  | Remove-Job -Force
    }
    echo "still running"
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 3
}

PS: My jobs started with Start-Jobs are already taken care of..

Answer 1

The only two solutions I’ve seen for this problem are:

1. Run the queries as background jobs and put a timer on them, then stop/remove the jobs that run too long.

2. Fix your servers.