Job timout issue

Hello Michael,

Thank you for the details, having the exact error text helps a lot.

This error comes from the job handshake, the moment PowerShell Universal starts a new PowerShell process for a job and waits for that process to report that it is ready.
That wait covers only the process startup, not your script.

So a 120 second stall means something is slowing down or blocking the launch of the process on the server.
Since your Job Handshake Timeout is already at 120 seconds, four times the default of 30, raising it again is unlikely to solve this.
The next step is to find what holds the process back.

To reduce the failures in the meantime, here are two things you can do now:

• Turn on Random Delay for schedules that start at the same time, so their job processes do not all launch at once: https://docs.devolutions.net/powershell-universal/automation/schedules
• Make sure your antivirus or EDR excludes the PowerShell Universal folders and executables listed in the Antivirus Configuration section: https://docs.devolutions.net/powershell-universal/getting-started/

To find the cause, could you email the following to service@devolutions.net instead of posting it here?
Logs can contain server names, paths and account names, and email keeps them out of this public thread.

Please include a link to this thread in your email so we can match it to your request.

• The system log that covers one failed job, from %ProgramData%\PowerShellUniversal\Logs\System, with the time of the failure.
• Whether the failing jobs use a Run As credential, and which environment they run in, for example PowerShell 7 or Windows PowerShell 5.1.
• Whether PowerShell Universal runs as a Windows service or under IIS, and how many nodes share the SQL database.
• Roughly how many jobs start at the same time when the failures happen, and whether the failures cluster at certain times or on one node.
• When this started, and whether anything changed around that time, such as an upgrade, an antivirus update, new schedules or server changes.

The system log tells us whether the PowerShell process exited early or never answered, and each case points to a different cause.

Once we have this, we can narrow down where the startup time goes.

Best regards,

I sent the email yesterday afternoon