"Attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state" error when trying to invoke command with invoke-vmscript for a SRM protected VM

[Pcliba]

Hi community,

I have a short question. I have a powercli script which does sth. with a vm via Invoke-VMScript.

If the VM is protected by SRM, I get the following error message:

Invoke-VMScript  The attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state (Powered off).

    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Invoke-VMScript], InvalidPowerState

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Client20_VmGuestServiceImpl_RunScriptInGuest_ViError,VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Cmdlets

   .Commands.InvokeVmScript

I tried to catch this with query

(Get-VM VMname).ExtensionData.Config.ManagedBy

But whatever I do, I get the same error message again. Sometimes, the action is performed nevertheless I receive this message.

Has somebody an idea what to do in this case?

Thanks in advance

Sepp

[LucD]

What PowerState does the Get-VM VMName return?

Is it always PoweredOff?

[Pcliba]

Hi Luc,

thanks for you reply.

I search this vm in my 2 separate environments (whith 2 vcenter server each).

I get 2 lines, one with PoweredOff and one with PoweredOn while connected to both (all) vcenters.

Name	PowerState Num CPUs MemoryGB
----	---------- -------- --------
vm1041033	PoweredOn  2	8.000
vm1041033	PoweredOff 2	8.000

Is there a way to get only the poweredOn vm and to skip the placeholder?

[LucD · Accepted solution]

With the Get-VM cmdlet you will have to use a Where-clause.

Something like this

$vm = Get-VM -Name vm1041033 | where{$_.PowerState -eq 'PoweredOn'}

When you use the Get-View cmdlet, you have the option to use the Filter parameter that accepts RegEx expressions.

The drawback is that Get-View returns a vSphere object, you will need an extra line, with the Get-VIObjectByVIView, to convert this to a .Net object.

$vmObj = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Filter @{'Name'="^vm1041033$";'Runtime.PowerState'='PoweredOn'}

$vm = Get-VIObjectByVIView -VIView $vmObj

[Pcliba]

Thanks Luc! The Get-View tip seems to be the solution! No errors with these lines.

I already tried the Where-clause with the Get-VM cmdlet but received the same error.

Thanks again for your quick reply! Appreciate it.