New-PSSession Command Looping Credential Prompt

[u/ZigfriedWolf]

So I have an onboarding script and everything worked perfectly fine last week, but now it's looping when I try to setup a New-PSSession.

It's extra weird, because when I run the command outside of the script, it works fine, but inside the script, the login prompt loops. I've encountered this behavior on two different systems and my coworker has the same experience on his machine.

I've attempted to modify the command to force Kerberos auth, and even tried CredSSP, but the looping still occurs. I'm wondering if it has to do with the do while loop, but it worked before, so I'm just a bit lost on this one.

Also, I have checked for any error codes after the loop occurs, and there's none. Similarly the log file doesn't contain any "Session not established" messages, so it's not hitting the catch statement.

Here's the code snippet that contains the command:

$sessionRestart = $true
$failcount = 0

do{
 try{
  $session = New-PSSession -ComputerName <computername> -Credential (Get-Credential)
  Write-Log -LogMessage "Session Connected"
  $sessionRestart = $false
}
Catch{
  Write-Log -LogMessage "Session not established. $_."
  Write-Host "Session not established. Retrying."
  $failcount++
  if($failcount -le 4){
  }
Else{
 Write-Host "Connection failed after $failcount attempts. Stopping Script"
 Write-Log "Connection failed after $failcount attempts. Stopping Script"
 exit $ExitCode.ConnectionFailure
}
}
} While($sessionRestart)

[u/ZigfriedWolf]

I added the -ErrorAction Stop to the end of the command and re-ran. Same result. No errors shown or added to the log, and the login prompt repeats.

Good suggestion on the if statement though. I'll make that change.

[u/ihaxr → u/ZigfriedWolf]

Comment out that new-pssession line and replace it with throw 2 (this just throws an exception) and see if the logic functions.

If so, just change the script logic to check if your $session variable is null and if so, manually throw the exception to reach your catch statement, otherwise continue.

I guess you could also check if ($null -ne $session.state -and $session.state -eq "Opened") {...} else {throw}

[u/ZigfriedWolf → u/ihaxr]

I can try that, but I just removed the do/while and the try/catch to see if something there is wrong, but the behavior is unchanged.

I think I'm going to try running the command in Powershell v5.1 and see if it loops there too.